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ry,  .^r. 


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1:5 1:> 

I/O 

T    ' 


TNTimDUCTOKY   NOTE. 


TiiKSK  studies  of  tlu'  Old  Testainont  were  originally 
l>ul>lislii'd  in  one  of  our  most  widely-cireulatetl  reli^j^ious 
pi^pers.  So  many  persons  have  expresKetl  a  wish  for 
(luin  in  a  more  permanent  form,  that  they  are  now 
<f:itlii'n<l  into  tliis  volume.  Slight  changes  have  been 
maile,  —  a  change  in  the  order  of  topics,  an  occasional 
i-nlargement  or  alteration  of  panigraphs,  ami  a  ftw 
corrections.  If  the  volume  serves  to  illustnite,  in  any 
degree,  lu)w  ancient  and  neglectoil  Scriptures  ma}'  be 
revived  in  the  i)opular  interest,  and  thus  to  show  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  liinng  book  for 
all  ages,  the  object  of  this  republication  will  be  ac- 
complished. 

TuKOLooicAL  Semixaky,  Axdoveb,  Majbs. 

Oct  1,  1878. 


.95 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

I.    The  Prophet  of  the  Buokex  IIeart  ...  7 
V    n.    God  wohks  with   Minouities  who  aius  wokk- 

INO  Koit  Him 21 

m.      A   MoilKL  OK   rilAVKK   IN   EmEUGKNTIES   ...  33 

IV.    An  -VjiTfiENT  Revival  ok  Remgion        ...  43 

V.    CmusTiAN  Alliances  with  Wicked  Men    .        .  55 

•     VI.    IIoNOiuxG  God's  IIolsb G7 

VII.      rKKSC5n*TION   in   THE  WORSHIP  OF   GOD             .           .  79 
VI 11.      FlUELITr  TO   THE    UeLIGION    OF    A   GODLY  ANCES- 
TRY       89 

IX.    The  Lost  Son  of  a  Godly  Father      .        .        .  100 

X.    The  Godly  Son  of  an  Ungodly  Father  .111 

XI.    The  Prodigal  Son  of  Godly  P.vrents                .  124 

XII.    The  Twin  Serpents i:{7 

XIII.  Avowed  Enemies  of  Keligion        ....  147 

XIV.  A  Talk  with  Yoino  People  abopt  Josi.ui       .  IGl 
XV.    \y  Ancient  Model  of  Yocthfi-l  Temperance.  174 

XVI.    The  Lost  Bible 187 

XVII.    Good  Men  who  are  not  Ciiirchmicx    .        .        .  201 

XVIII.    Lntertwlnlng  of  God's  Pl.\>s  with  the  Plans 

of  Men 215 

XIX.    The   Ktngdoms    that   dle,    and   the   Kingdom 

that  lfves 230 

TCX.     PLOTLESS  CoimCTIONS  OF  SrN         ....  244 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

XXI.    The  Mrs  in  the  Fire 'J«;i 

XXII.    The  Man  in  tue  Lions'  Den "JT? 

XXIII.  Tue  Fitlfilmi:nt  ov  Prophecy  in  the  Caheeu 

OF  Cyrus 2^ 

XXIV.  Christ  the  Centre  of  I3iblic.\x  Thouout  .        .  ."14 


STUDIES  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 


THK  rKoriir.T  of  tiih  iujokkn-  tikaut. 

Oh  that  my  homl  were  wat«TS,  ninl  niine  eye*  a  fountain  «»f 
t*'urs,  that  I  lui^jht  woop  day  unci  night  fur  the  sluiu  of  tho 
daughter  of  my  iveopli-!  —  Jeu.  ix.  1. 

''pili:  'Weeping  Prophet"  is  the  title  often 
-'-  given  to  Jeremiah.  lie  is  not  a  p(tjiuhir 
prophet.  Unhappy  men  are  not  eommonly  jxipu- 
hir  men.  Yet  this  one  liail  ami)le  rea.^on  lor  the 
depression  under  whieli  he  lived,  and  the  minor 
key  whieh  runs  through  the  strain  of  his  writings. 
He  was  verv  far  from  being  a  morose  man.  He 
did  not  mourn  over  disajijjointed  and)itions  of  his 
youth.  He  was  not  sound  at  the  world's  injustiee. 
He  wasted  no  melodrama  over  the  "cold,  cold 
world."  H<'  was  the  last  man  living  to  be  a  mis- 
ant  hroi)i'. 

It  may  help  us  to  appreciate  two  of  the  most 
afl'ecting  and  sul)lime  books  of  the  Bible,  to  in- 
(piire.  What  was  it  that  made  this  very  able  and 

godl}-  man  so  miserable  ?     Why  should  he,  more 

7 


8  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

than  other  men,  be  given  over  to  lifelong  sorrow  ? 
Why  should  he,  more  than  other  men,  leave  us  a 
book  of  "Lamentations"  as  the  most  signifieaut 
record  of  his  life?  Why  should  his  name  have 
coined  a  Mitr<l.  "jeremiad,"  expressive  of  the 
lugubrious  and  dismal  in  literature? 

The  answer  is  this.  lie  had  a  most  delicately 
sensitive  nature,  a  most  profound  attachment  to 
the  cause  of  God,  an  intense  i)atriotie  love  of  his 
native  land ;  yet  it  was  his  lot  t«)  live  at  an  age 
when  the  people  of  God  had  fallen  into  most  fear- 
ful apostasy,  and  the  most  tcrrilic  judgments  were 
impending  over  them.  It  was  given  to  him  to  see 
those  judgments  hurrying  on  apace.  He  hrard 
angels  of  retribution  on  the  wings  of  the  wind. 
He  saw  their  sabres  flashing  in  the  sun. 

Moreover,  it  was  his  mission  to  tell  the  people 
of  their  sins,  to  rebuke  the  nobles  for  their  oppres- 
sion, the  humbler  orders  for  their  vileness,  the 
priesthood  for  their  falseness,  even  his  fellow- 
prophets  for  their  infidelity  to  the  living  God. 
The  whole  nation,  from  prince  to  beggar,  had 
reached  the  very  bottom  of  national  depravit}* ; 
and  this  lone  man  was  set  to  tell  them  of  it,  and 
to  forewarn  them  of  the  frightful  doom  which  was 
impending.  He  was-  the  prophet  of  unwelcome 
truth.  He  had  to  face  the  facts  of  an  age  of 
retribution;  He  had  to  tear  away  the  illusions 
with  which  people  were  deceiving  themselves. 
They  were  bragging  of  the  recovery  of  the  Bible, 


THE   rUUl'lIET   or   THK   IIUOKHN    HEART.         9 

wliicl)  Josiah  had  IouimI  in  tlio  rubhish  of  their 
(k'secratetl  temple.  Tliey  elainied  that  that  saere«l 
treasure  was  going  to  make  all  things  right  with 
thciji.  They  treated  it  much  as  an  AlViean  savago 
reirards  the  iVtieh  wliiili  lie  worships,  or  the 
aniulet  which  he  wears  around  his  neck.  The 
possession  of  the  Sacred  Book,  they  thought, 
would  save  them.  This  young  prophet  knew 
better,  and  lie  had  to  tell  them  so. 
•  The  recovered  liible  had  come  too  late  to  save 
them,  just  as  Christianity  now  comes  to  some 
savaije  tribes  too  late  to  save  them  from  externa- 
nation.  'Hie  people  did  not  want  to  hear  his 
story.  He  was  a  cvMidur.  They  wanted  to  hear 
somebody  who  Wi>uld  give  them  a  i)leasanter  dis- 
course. People  who  are  living  in  sin,  and  who 
know  it,  are  sometimes  very  fond  of  "beautiful 
sermons."  They  will  bear  any  thing  better  than 
the  simple  truth.  Beauty  is  more  pojjular  than 
truth. 

Besides,  this  unpopular  preacher  stood  alone. 
Not  another  one  of  the  prophetic  order  stood  by 
liini.  The  only  friend  he  had  was  one  Baruch.  an 
obscure  scribe  ;  and  even  he  got  sadly  fi-ightened 
at  the  plain  talk  t)f  his  outspoken  friend.  The 
priests,  too,  hated  liim  as  a  renegade.  All  classes 
—  some  for  one  reason,  and  some  for  another  — 
agreed  in  theii'  spite  against  this  solitary  truth- 
teller.  Like  Bunyan  and  many  another  unpala- 
tiible  preacher,  he  got  liimself  into  prison  for  his 


10  STUDIES   OF   TirE   OLD   TEST^UIENT. 

fidelity.  For  forty  years  it  was  his  business  to 
deliver  his  warnings  and  rebukes  and  threaten- 
ings,  word  for  word,  as  God  bade  him,  to  nobles 
and  priests  and  i)eople  who  were  bent  on  destruc- 
tion, and  determined  not  to  be  saved  by  God  or 
man. 

To  liim  belongs  the  distinction  of  first  suffering 
the  burning  of  the  word  of  God  by  the  enraged 
king  who  would  not  listen  to  liis  reproofs.  Many 
times  after  his  day,  faitliful  preachers  and  reform- 
ers saw  the  Bible  burneJ  in  tlie  markef-place  by 
royal  and  papal  decree.  But  the  iirst  in  the  h)ng 
line  of  such  honored  men  was  this  desj)ondent 
prophet  of  Juda'a.  On  him  Satan  first  wreaked 
that  form  of  impotent  revenge.  As  if  a  truth 
could  be  burned  with  a  fiaming  scroll ! 

A  singular  fact  also  is  it,  that  this  solitary 
preacher,  the  butt  of  a  nation's  ridicule,  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  made  for  such  work.  Usually 
God  fits  the  man  to  his  life's  work.  If  he  is  to 
have  stern  work  to  do,  he  is  made  of  stern  stuff. 
Luther,  with  much  that  was  lovable  in  his  nature, 
was,  on  the  whole,  a  rough,  stout  man.  That 
square  face  and  tliick  neck,  and  those  compact 
lips  of  his,  indicate  a  man  of  will,  who  could  bear 
rougher  handling  than  other  men.  He  was  to 
contend  with  devils ;  and  God  gave  him  a  nature 
which  deAils  feared.  Nobody  ever  called  Luther 
the  "  weeping  prophet."  If  he  shed  tears,  it  was 
on  his  knees  before  God  only.     He  shed  no  tears 


Tin:   PROPFIET   OF   THE   BROKEN    HEART.      11 

before  the  Diet  of  Worms.  He  was  in  no  lacliry- 
mose  mood  when  he  had  tlie  pope's  l)nll  to  deal 
with,  outside  the  Elster  Gate  of  Wittenberg. 

The  mourning  i)rophet  of  Judaea  does  not  seem 
to  liave  been  of  tliat  stern  make.  lie  liad  a  deli- 
cate and  retiring  nature,  (ielitle  and  unseliish 
was  he,  like  a  loving  woman.  When  the  sombre 
truth  fii-st  dawns  upon  his  early  manhood,  and  he 
sees  the  work  he  has  to  <U),  he  breaks  out  with  the 
despairing  cry,  "  Ah,  Lord  !  I  cannot  speak  I  I 
am  but  a  child!"  So  overwhelmed  is  he  l)y  the 
sight  of  his  country's  shame,  and  the  foresight  of 
her  doom,  that  he  exclauus,  "Oh  that  my  head 
were  waters,  that  1  might  weep  day  and  night  for 
the  daughter  of  my  people  !  *'  His  writings  show, 
by  their  chosen  imagery,  that  he  longs  for  solitude. 
He  hungers  to  get  away  from  the  sins  and  sorrows 
of  his  time.  Cowper's  refrain,  "  Oh  for  a  lodge  in 
some  vast  wilderness  I  "  would  have  expressed  the 
habit  of  his  mind.  He  "sits  alone,  and  keeps 
silence,  crouching  under  his  burden."  We  seem 
to  hear  him  crymg  out  in  the  bitterness  of  his 
spirit,  — 

*'  The  time  is  out  of  joint.     Ob,  cursed  spite, 
That  ever  I  was  bom  to  set  it  right  I" 

It  is  very  significant  of  the  despair-  of  liis  soul, 
that  he  lives  a  celibate  life.  It  is  not  for  such  a 
man  as  he  to  seek  the  dear  delights  of  family  and 
companionsliips  of  home.     His  great  life's  work  is 


12  STUDIES   OF   Tins   OLD   TEST  \M  TNT. 

too  sad,  too  heart-! )reaking.  Uv  will  not  voiitinc 
to  lay  the  half  of  it  on  the  heart  of  any  woman. 
At  times,  when  the  solitude  i)f  it,  and  the  l>lack- 
ness  of  it,  and  tin-  funeral  dir<;e  of  it,  beeome 
intolerable,  he  heaps  eurses  on  the  day  of  his 
birth.  True  to  his  Oriental  instinets,  he  curses 
the  very  messenger  who  bore  tiie  glad  news  to  liis 
father  that  a  boy  was  born  to  bear  liis  nam*'.  Yes, 
lie  is  the  Prophet  of  the  Broken  Heart.  Tiiu  sins 
of  his  people  are  a  lifelong  grief  to  him.  His 
own  work,  as  their  spiritual  teaeher,  overwhelms 
him.  The  mystery  of  his  life  i.s,  why  he,  of  all 
men  living,  should  have  been*  ealled  to  sueli  a 
mission,  auiong  such  a  j)e«>ple,  on  the  eve  of  their 
destruction,  too  late  to  do  them  any  good ;  wlien 
all  that  he  can  do  is  t<)  proclaim  to  tiiem  the  jutlg- 
ments  with  whieh  they  are  .soon  to  l>o  overtaken. 

When  the  late  Uev.  Charles  Kingsley  was  in  his 
last  sickness,  and  verv  near  his  end,  thou;;h  he  did 
not  knt)w  it,  but  was  wailing  in  anguish  for  the 
daily  expected  death  of  his  wife,  he  said  one  day, 
as  his  bi(»grapher  tells  u.s  "It  must  l)e  right;  for 
it  is  so  strange  and  yet  so  painful,"  The  very 
mysteriousness  of  inexplicable  trial  is  a  token  •)f 
the  divine  wisdom  from  whieh  it  comes.  No  other 
mind  could  contrive  trial  so  profound.  It  mu.-t 
come  from  God,  and  "  must  be  right."  Such  was 
the  forlorn  consolation  of  the  stricken  prophet, 
when  overwhebned,  as  he  often  was,  by  the  lot 
which  it  had   pleased  God  to  send    him.     Even 


THE  PKoriiFrr  of  the  iiuoken  heakt.     13 

God's  veracity  he  (juestions:  '•  <  >  I.onl,  tlmu  hast 
(h'ceived  me,  and  I  was  deceivetl.  Iiu|neealions 
How  IVoiii  his  lips  like  htmselmld  words. 

'I'm  his  own  times  and  people  he  Wiis  the  prophet 
of  do(»m.  So  far  as  they  were  eoneerned,  his  work 
endetl  there.  Not  so  in  the  ftire-reaehinj^  desijj^n  of 
God.  .leremiah  "Imilded  hetter  than  he  knew." 
He  did  an  uneonsi'ious  work  for  eomin^  ages. 
Imperfect  man  as  ho  was,  he  w;uj  the  forerunner 
of  the  npiritiitif  dis.l. cures  of  the  new  disjK'nsa- 
tion.  The  old  di  ^  ition  was  n«'ar  its  eml.  Its 
Bun  waii  going  down  in  blood-red  chmils.  Hut  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  the  aneicnt  forms  and  rites 
was  coming  slowly  to  the  light.  To  no  other 
prophet  of  the  olden  time,  unless  it  he  Isaiah,  do 
we  turn  for  glimpses  of  it  as  we  do  to  this  despair- 
ing one.  The  very  bunlen  of  His  soul  pressed  it 
out  u(  him.  Ill'  was  driven  to  fall  l»aek  upon  the 
spiritual  truths  and  cons<dations  which  his  own 
soul  needed.  Ills  very  siiis  made  them  a  necessity 
to  him.  Nothing  else  could  s;ive  him  from  mania 
or  suicide.  Cii»d  thus  »/>»«•(/  hinj,  his  sorrows,  his 
self-conllicts,  his  errt>rs,  his  sins. 

Let  us  pass  rapidly  over  a  few  suggestions  ilrawn 
from  this  sketch  t>f  this  remarkable  man:  — 

1.  Jeremiah  npri»<nt«  a  ihnof  of  yood  men  and 
tromen  of  whom  some  exist  iu  every  age.  There 
are  some  good  men  o(  whom  it  must  Ijc  conceded 
that  they  are  not  gay  Christians.  From  their 
make,   and  from   the  disclosures  of   truth   which 


14  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 


t 


God  gives  them,  they  cannot  be.  They  have  a 
peculiarly  sensitive  and  deep  nature.  They  have 
profound  intuitions.  Their  religion  is  proportion- 
ately deep  and  tender.  In  all  this  world's  history, 
nothing  else  is  so  startling  a  fact  to  them  as  that 
this  is  a  lost  world,  estranged  from  God,  on  its 
way,  but  for  God's  loving  grace,  to  an  eternal  and 
awful  doom. 

These  men  and  women  are  often  blamed  for 
being  gloomy.  In  their  hearts  they  answer,  "  How 
can  we  be  hilarious  when  the  imperilled  'souls  of 
men,  and  our  own  too,  rest  as  a  burden  upon  us  ?  " 
If  the  world  were  enveloped  in  one  vast  conflagra- 
tion, should  we  naturally  laugh  and  sing  and  dance 
our  way  through  it?  Yet  a  more  fearful  flame  is 
rava^inor  it  than  that  of  the  fires  of  Etna.  A  cer- 
tain  sobriety  of  deportment  seems  to  such  men 
becoming  to  life  in  such  a  world  as  this,  and  with 
such  a  futiu'e  crowding  on  its  destiny. 

Christian  ministers,  whose  work  compels  them 
to  think  much  of  these  things,  are  apt  to  be  so 
oppressed  by  them  as  to  acquire  a  certain  gravity 
of  demeanor  which  the  world  laughs  at.  If  you 
could  look  into  theii'  hearts,  as  you  sometimes  do 
in  their  memoirs,  you  would  see  that  they  bear  the 
burden  day  and  night  of  this  lost  world. 

2.  Christians  of  the  broken  heart,  it  must  be 
confessed,  are  not  apt  to  he  fojpular  ivith  the  world. 
Ver}'  hard  things  are  Sidd  of  them.  Very  unjust 
judgments  they  have  to  bear  in  silence.     The  world 


THE   PROPHET   OF   THE   CPtOKEN   HEART.      15 

cracks  many  a  jest  upon  their  long  faces  and  their 
"  vinegar  "  aspect.  I  have  seen  tears  trembling  in 
their  eyes,  as  their  only  answer  to  the  gibes  of 
men  for  whose  souls  they  went  home  to  pray. 

Yet  have  not  you  heard  fi-om  such  jesters  the 
fling  at  our  common  faith,  "If  I  believed  what 
you  believe,  I  shoidd  move  heaven  and  earth  to 
save  souls:  it  seems  to  me  I  could  never  laugh 
airain "  ?  So  said  an  estimable  woman  of  the 
world  to  me  last  summer.  It  is  hard  to  please 
inch  who  do  not  feel  the  inner  life  wliich  many 
humble  Christians  lead.  Which  shall  we  do,  gen- 
tlemen and. ladies,  which  shall  we  do?  —  liold  on 
to,  and  try  to  act  upon,  the  faiili  that  gives  us 
;"long  faces,"  or  meet  your  charge  of  heartless 
inconsistency  by  living  as  if  this  were  already  a 
saved  world,  and  oiu-  home  were  Eden  ? 

3.  The  class  of  godly  men  and  women  of  whom 
Jeremiah  is  the  type  possess  a  very  profound  style 
of  Chrintiayi  character.  Not  perfect,  by  any  means. 
We  all  have  an  ideal  of  a  certam  robust  and 
rounded  Christian  life  superior  to  theirs.  On  the 
whole,  St.  Paul  was  a  nobler  character  than  Jere- 
miah. He  oucrht  to  have  been.  He  saw  at  its 
meridian  the  sun  which  the  prophet  only  foresaw 
long  before  the  dawn.  Yet  it  is  unjust  not  to  give 
the  Jeremiahs  of  our  brotherhood  the  credit  for 
ploughing  deep  in  their  sense  of  eternal  things. 
They  may  not  be  as  happy  as  their  faith  in  Christ 
warrants  them  to  be.     Yet  they  do  make  a  begin- 


16  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

ning  in  the  right  direction.  Theirs  is  a  stru<j;fh 
to  be  and  to  do,  of  wliich  tliey  have  no  reason  to 
be  ashamed.  They  do  not  cover  their  eyes.  They 
accept  God's  teacliings  courageously.  Eternit}'- 
will  show  to  us  all,  that  some  of  the  world's 
great  souls  are  among  them.  Multitudes  who  were 
more  popular  with  their  fellow-men  here  will  there 
stand  aside,  and  leave  a  clear  space  for  those 
mourning  ones  to  go  up  and  hear  God's  message 
to  them.  Does  anybod}-  doubt  what  that  will  be  ? 
4.  Such  Cluistians  as  the  "•  weeping* prophet" 
represents  are  men  and  ivomen  of  great  spiritual 
power.  The  world  does  not  like  them,  but  cannot 
help  respecting  them.  "  I  keep  clear  of  unhappy 
people,"  said  one  of  the  impatient  ones :  yet  I 
observed  that  he  chose  for  his  pastor,  and  honored 
as  a  great  man,  one  whose  face  was  long,  and 
whose  look  betokened  secret  tears.  We  love 
realities,  after  all.  We  feel  tlie  power  of  the  man 
who  knows  the  most  of  them,  and  feels  them  most 
profoundly.  The  man  or  woman  who  takes  God's 
views  of  things,  interprets  human  life  as  God  in- 
terprets it,  looks  out  on  eternity  as  God  reveals 
it,  and  whose  \'isage  bears  the  marks  of  inward 
struggles  of  soul  with,  the  facts  of  human  destiny 
as  God  declares  them,  is  a  poxcer  with  us  all.  If 
we  come  into  deep  waters,  and  the  billows  go  over 
our  heads,  we  look  around  gasping  for  the  frientlly 
word  or  look  or  hand  of  such  to  cheer  us.  The 
very  men  we  have  laughed  at,  or  shrunk  from, 


THE   PROPHET   OF   THE   lUtOKEN   HEART.      17 

because  they  were  "  unco'  guid  men,"  are  those 
wliose  experience  we  want  then. 

Said  one  man  of  the  woHd,  whose  misfortune  it 
was  to  liave  a  "  gay  parson  "  for  liis  pastor,  "■  Our 
pastor  is  a  capital  fellow,  a  born  wit,  a  si)lendid 
luiniit!  ;  he  keeps  the  table  in  a  roar;  and  in  the 
pulpit  he  is  not  afraid  to  make  us  laugh."  Said 
his  friend,  "  Suppose  that  you  had  lost  your  only 
child,  or  that  you  were  yourself  about  to  die." 
— '  "■  Well,"  was  the  reply,  "  to  tell  you  the  truth, 
he  is  the  last  man  I  should  want  to  see  then.  Still 
he  is  a  capital  fellow." 

Somehow  the  "  capital  fellows,"  in  the  ministry 
or  out  of  it,  are  a  little  limited  in  their  range  of 
usefulness.  They  do  for  picnics  or  the  croquet- 
ground.  When  we  come  to  those  passages  of  life 
or  death  at  which  eternity  looks  in  upon  us,  we 
turn  to  men  and  women  of  another  make. 

5.  Who  can  help  seeing  that  broken-hearted 
Christians  are  in  some  respects  very  nearly  akin  to 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? 

Does  not  their  life,  dropping  its  inconsistencies, 
strike  us  very  much  as  his  life  does  ?  He  did  not 
live  a  very  hilarious  life.  Jests  are  not  the  chief 
thing  we  remember  from  his  lips.  His  biographers 
do  not  say  much  of  his  "  eyes  sparkling  with  fun," 
and  liis  "  ringing  laugh."  He  was  never  called  a 
"capital  fellow."  Such  clergymen  as  Matthew 
Byles  and  Sydney  Smith,  somehow,  do  not  remind 
us  very  impressively  of  him.     He  attended  a  wed- 


18  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA:yiENT. 

ding;  but  the  cliief  thing  he  did  there  had  more  to 
do  with  eternity  tluin  witli  time,  more  to  do  with 
God  than  with  man.  Comic  songs —  But  stop! 
Let  us  take  ojff  our  shoes  from  our  feet,  for  the 
ground  wliereon  we  stand  is  holy ! 

The  sorrows  of  men  liad  a  strange  attraction  for 
him.  He  did  not  "  keep  clear  of  unhappy  men." 
The  grave  of  Lazarus  was  the  scene  of  one  of  the 
events  most  strikingly  like  him.  The  way  he  felt 
about  Jerusalem  seems  very  much  like  that  of  the 
weeping  prophet.  The  nights  he  spent  in  prayer 
are  a  great  comfort  to  these  Christians  of  the 
broken  heart.  Of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary  what 
shall  we  say  ?  ]\Iay  we  reverently  ask  what  class 
of  Christians  most  nearly  resemble  him  there? 
What  kind  of  disciples  did  he  long  to  see  around 
him  then?  "What  is  the  meaning  of  that  jjrophetic 
portrait  of  him  which  painters  have  never  copied, 
"  His  visage  was  marred  more  than  any  man,  and 
his  form  more  than  the  sons  of  men  "  ? 

6.  Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  It  is  not  that 
the  example  even  of  the  "  Man  of  Sorrows "  for- 
bids mirth,  the  laugh,  the  song,  the  jest.  No: 
there  is  a  time  to  laugh,  and  a  time  to  dance.  Re- 
joice, O  young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and  let  thy 
heart  cheer  thee !  Christ  never  by  one  word  or 
look  enjoined  ascetic  vu"tues.  He  lived  so  that 
bad  men  called  him  a  glutton.  Men  who  prayed  in 
the  streets  with  one  eye  open  called  him  a  wine- 
bibber.     Men  who  cheated  widows  said  he  was  a 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  UROKEN  HEART.   19 

sabbath-breaker.  Adulterers  charged  liini  with 
unseemly  acciuaintance  with  outcast  women. 
Murderers  and  blasphemers  called  him  the  devil. 
He  was  no  saint  according  to  the  standard  of  such 
men.  Nevertheless,  the  whole  drift  of  his  teach- 
ings and  his  life  was  towards  a  different  kind  of 
life  from  that  which  men  call  pleasure.  Its  joys 
lie  deeper,  and  are  built  upon  crrtain  august  and 
steni  realities.  And  those  realities  it  is  which 
tljcse  Christians  of  the  downcast  eye  are  struggling 
with,  some  of  them,  day  by  day,  all  their  lives 
long. 

We  do  them  a  very  mean  injustice  if  we  fail  to 
give  them  credit  for  this.  They  are  simi)ly  strug- 
gling, like  drowning  men,  as  for  dear  life,  to  be 
true  to  the  faith  they  hold.  With  heavy  hearts 
and  swollen  eyes,  they  are  trying  to  live  their  faith. 
They  are  agonizing  to  get  near  to  Christ,  and  to 
live  there.  Drowning  men  do  not  sing  many 
comic  songs.  Ye  cynical  critics,  tliink  what  you 
may  of  the  rest  of  us :  there  are  such  men  and 
women  as  these,  of  whom  Christ  is  not  ashamed. 
Oh,  what  poor  fools  we  are  if  we  profane  their 
conflicts  with  a  gibe  ! 

7.  These  Christians  of  the  broken  heart  are  sure 
of  a  very  exalted  rank  in  heaven.  I  hear  a  voice 
from  beyond  the  stars,  saying,  "Blessed  are  they 
that  mourn,  for  they  shall  be  comforted.  Blessed 
are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness, 
for  they  shall  be  filled.     What  are  these  that  are 


.  < 


20  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^UIEXT. 

arra}XHl  in  white  robes?  Whence  came  they? 
These  are  they  that  came  out  of  great  tribuhition : 
therefore  are  they  before  the  tlirone  of  God,  and 
serve  liim  day  and  night  in  his  temple.  They 
shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  tliirst  any  more: 
and  God  shall  wijie  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes." 


^- 


N^^ 


GOD    WOIIKS    WITH    MINORITIES    WHO    ARH 
WuiiKINO    FOR    HIM. 

Bo  not  afraid  nor  ili.sinayod  by  reason  of  this  groat  mnlti- 
tiulf;  for  tho  Ituttlo  is  not  yours,  Imt  (l^Mrfl.  .  .  .  Yo  shall  not 
need  to  llj;lit:  .  .  .  staml  y«'  still,  and  aeo  tho  salvation  of  tho 
Lord:  .  .  .  fear  not,  tho  Lord  will  bo  with  you.  — 2  Chuon.  xx. 

ir.,  17. 

AT  the  darkest  hour  of  our  civil  war,  when 
the  life  of  the  country  seenieil  trembling  in 
tlie  balance,  the  Government  proclaimed  a  fast. 
The  people  gathered  in  immense  numbers  in  the 
churches.  Men  not  often  seen  there  were  found 
there  on  that  day.  An  eminent  civilian  in  one  of 
our  Atlantic  cities,  who  seldom  sought  God's 
house  on  the  Lord's  Day,  was  observed  on  that 
fast  day  kneeling  devoutly  with  God's  people. 
When  inquired  of' what  brought  him  out  to  such 
services,  he  replied,  "  I  thought  it  was  high  time 
to  get  help  somewhere.  We  are  in  a  tight  place, 
and  we  need  it." 

^leu  often  seek  God  in  "  a  tight  place,"  when 
they  tliuik  little  of  him  in  other  places.  It  is 
marvellous  how  reasonable  and  proper  j^raygr  seems 
to  them  in  such  emergencies. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Judoean  kingdom 

21 


22  STUDIES   OF   TIIE   OLD   TESTAMKN'T. 

at  the  time  of  wliicli  our  text  speaks.  A  fast  liad 
just  been  observed  ;  the  entire  |)eoi)le  had  come 
together  to  obtain  lielp  of  G(h1  ■•in  a  lii^rlit  phiee." 
He  gave  thera  their  desire,  as  he  commonly  does 
when  men  in  troubh>  turn  to  him  for  relief.  And 
in  giving  it  he  announced  one  of  the  great  jtrinei- 
I)les  of  his  working  in  the  affairs  of  his  king(h)m: 
hi  works  with  minorities  who  are  working  for  him. 
"Be  not  afraid  nor  dismayed  by  reason  of  this 
great  multitude;  for  the  battle  is  nob  yours,  but 
God's."  (■;.)  out  against  them.  The  Lord  will  ])o 
with  you. 

1.  The  history  of  the  Church  is  full  of  illustra- 
tions of  this  law  of  divine  procedure.  Dip  into  it 
anywhere,  and  you  come  upoTi  this  divine  shat- 
<^o.y-  Napoleon  thought  that  he  knew  the  world 
well.  lie  had  studied  the  history  of  great  empires  ; 
but  he  said  it  was  an  inexplicable  mystery  to  him, 
that  Christianity,  beginning  as  it  did  with  a  few 
fishermen  of  the  feeblest  nation  then  on  the  globe, 
should  hi  his  time  have  risen  to  be  so  much  more 
mighty  than  his  own  conquests,  which  had  almost 
all  the  armies  of  Europe  to  back  them. 

"  Ob  I  whi-re  are  kings  and  cnipiros  now, 
Of  old  that  went  and  came  ? 
But,  Lord,  thy  Church  is  praying  yet, 
A  thousand  years  the  same." 

It  was   God's  way  of  working  with  minorities 
who  are  working  for  him.     When  the  Chuich  be- 


GOD   WORKS   WITH    MINORITIES.  23 

came  corrupt,  ami  needed  reform,  tin-  same  thing 
was  repeated.  A  few  earnest  men,  wlio  were 
hunted  likt;  wihl  beasts,  in  a  few  years  shook  the 
world.     Tlie  battle  was  not  theirs,  but  God's. 

An  old  saying  of  tlie  German  reformers,  which 
a  modern  reformer  has  untruthfully  claimed  as 
his  own,  was,  "  One,  with  God  on  his  side,  is  a 
majority."  "The  battle  is  not  yours,  but  (iod\s." 
This  fragment  of  our  lesson  was  the  favorite  text 
of  8ir  Fowell  IJuxton.  lb-  onee  wrote  to  his 
daughter  that  she  would  find  iiis  IJible  opening  of 
itself  to  the  i»laee  where  this  passage  oceui-s.  This 
text  it  wius  whieh  gave  him  courage  to  move  in  the 
Ihilish  Parliament  for  the  emaneij)ation  of  slaves 
throughout  the  British  Empire.  When  he  entered 
on  that  conlliet.  he  stood  almost  alone ;  when  his 
bill  was  first  read  in  Parliament,  it  was  received 
with  shouts  of  derisive  laughter.  Hut  he  be- 
thought him  of  this  text,  and  began  his  speech 
saying,  "Mr.  Speaker,  the  reading  of  this  bill  is 
the  beginning  of  a  movement  whieh  will  surely 
end  in  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the 
British  dominions."  The  old  Hebrew  prophet 
never  said  a  truer  word.  Sir  Fowell  knew  it :  for 
the  battle  was  not  liis,  but  God's. 

The  same  phenomenon  was  witnessed  in  the  first 
attempt  to  establish  American  missions  among  the 
heathen.  When  one  of  the  early  meetings  of  the 
American  Board  was  held  at  Bradford,  Mass.,  less 
than  twenty  persons  were  in  attendance  ;  and  they 


24  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMKNT. 

were  hooted  at  by  boys  on  the  piazza  of  the  hotel 
where  they  were  in  session.  liarely  sixty-fivo 
years  have  passed  ;  and  at  the  hist  nu'etin^j  of  tliat 
Board,  in  Providence,  live  tlionsand  strangers  from 
abroad  were  present,  and  two  churches  were  filled 
with  eager  friends. 

When  the  first  American  missionaries  readied 
India,  the  English  CJovernment  refused  them  a 
landing.  "  Go  back,"  was  the  imperious  onh-r : 
"go  back  in  the  ship  in  whicli  you  came."  In  the 
General  Assembly  of  tlie  Church  of  Scotland, 
when  it  was  first  i)r(ij)Osed  to  send  tlio  gospel  to 
the  heathen,  reverend  clergymen  declared  against 
the  fanatical  scheme.  They  said  that  "  the  heath- 
en were  a  contentcMl  and  happy  jn'ople,  and  that 
it  was  no  business  of  Scottish  Christians  to  disturb 
them,"  And  this  in  face  of  our  Lord's  express 
connnand,  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach 
the  gospel  to.  every  creature."  Not  a  century  has 
passed  since  that  time :  yet  now  all  Christendom 
rings  with  gratulation  over  the  achievement  of 
Chiistian  missions  ;  and  no  other  class  of  men  are 
so  reverently  canonized  in  tlie  affections  of  the 
Church  as  her  missionaries  to  the  heathen  world. 
This  is  the  fruit  of  God's  working  with  minorities 
who  are  working  for  him. 

So  uniform  has  been  this  method  of  divine  pro- 
cedure, tliat  we  may  safely  say  that  great  progress 
of  any  good  cause  is  seldom  if  ever  secured  in  any 
other  way.     When  a  good  cause  becomes  popular, 


GOD   WORKS   WITH   MIN0IITTII':S.  25 

and  inajorities  swin^'  ovor  to  its  support,  the  work 
is  substantially  tlone.     Probably  somo  new  cause 
is  then  eoniinj_j  to  the  birth  untlerneath.     Every 
cause  whicli  (iod  originates  starts  with  only  Gid 
eon's  three  hundred. 

2,  From  this  law  of  God's  working,  it  is  clear 
that  in  Kjn'ritiutl  (iffairx  the  balance  of  power  does 
not  depend  on  numbtrn.  Votes  have  very  little  to 
do  with  it.  It  depends  on  sj>iritual  forces.  It 
depends  on  insight  into  the  spiritual  wants  of 
the  World;  on  consecration  to  (Jod's  service;  on 
the  power  of  prayer;  on  spiritual  discovery  of  the 
side  on  which  God  is  ;  and  specially  on  intenaity 
of  Christian  cliaracter. 

The  few  who  start  a  great  movement  towards 
the  world's  conversion,  and  who  become  its  heroes 
because  God  has  chosen  them,  are  always  intense 
men.  They  see  things  vividly.  They  have  great 
visions.  They  feel  profoundly.  Their  souls  are 
atlame  with  holy  ardt)r.  "  His  ministers  are  a 
llaming  iire."  Yet  they  are  men  of  sustained  en- 
thusiasm. The  fire  does  not  crackle  and  blaze  out 
(juickly  :  it  burns  like  kindled  anthracite.  In  the 
best  sense  they  are  men  of  one  idea,  —  a  vast  idea, 
in  which  a  thousand  common  ones  are  centred, 
yet  one  to  wliich  whole  souls  can  be  reasonably 
devoted.  So  far  as  this  world  is  concerned,  God 
is  possessed  of  one  idea. 

Such  men  are  always  a  power  in  the  world. 
The  world  cannot  help  it,  and  they  cannot  help  it. 


26  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST-;i:MENT. 

Such  men  are  one  of  God's  powers,  imperial  in 
authority,  and  destined  to  conquest.  In  due  time 
numbers  will  swell  around  them.  Meanwhile  it 
is  of  very  little  account  how  many  or  how  few 
they  are  at  the  outset. 

"  A  little  flock:  so  calls  He  thee 

Wliu  bought  thee  with  his  blood; 
A  lit  I  It'  flock,  (lisowiu'd  of  iiit-n, 
But  owned  and  loved  of  God." 

3.  It  is  a  great  thought  on  this  subject,  that  the 
human  race  furnislwis  hut  a  small  part  <>f  the  holy 
ministries  of  this  world.  The  ministry  of  angels 
probably  swells  what  we  call  minorities  to  secret 
majorities.  "  Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits  ?  " 
Invisible  nniltitudes  i)robably  lill  the  air  with  their 
busy  pinions  in  service  to  the  right.  Wv  are  sur- 
rounded with  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses.  When 
conflicts  deepen  on  the  earth,  for  and  against  the 
cause  of  Christ,  other  worlds  send  hosts  of  eager 
combatants  to  the  fray.  Probably  no  child  of  God 
is  ever  left  without  these  unseen  auxiliaries.  "  He 
shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee.''  Earthly 
monarchs  often  form  secret  treaties  of  alliance, 
offensive  and  defensive,  by  wliich  each  pledges 
the  whole  force  of  his  kingdom  to  the  support  of 
the  other.  Let  us  have  faith  to  see  the  unseen, 
and  it  may  often  help  our  wavering  coiu'age  to 
remember  that  countless  myriads  are  in  secret 
alliance  with  us. 


GOD    WORKS   WITH   MINORITIES.  27 

One  of  England's  great  poets  says  of  a  noted 
champion  of  liberty,  — 

"  Thou  hast  left  behind 
Powers  that  will  work  for  thee;  air,  earth,  and  skies: 
There's  not  a  breathing  of  the  common  wind 
That  will  forget  the»'.     Thou  hast  great  allies. 
.  .  .  Winds  blow  and  waters  roil 
Strength  to  the  brave." 

But  the  friend  of  Christ  has  allies  more  imperial 
than  skies  and  winds  and  waters.  Principalities  in 
heavenly  places,  beings  some  of  whom  probably 
sway  at  their  will  the  powers  of  nature,  are  his 
allies. 

4.  Success  in  spiritual  affairs  often  loses  the  char- 
acter of  a  conflict,  so  overwhelming  and  so  easy  is 
the  working  of  divine  auxiliaries.  Thus  ran  the 
good  cheer  to  the  outnumbered  men  of  Judah: 
"  Ye  shall  not  need  to  fight  in  this  battle :  stand 
ye  still,  and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord  with 
you."  God's  help  often  comes  in  immense  waves 
of  spiritual  rerenforcements.  Our  small  calcula- 
tions and  petty  fears  are  overborne.  We  are  lilted 
up,  and  carried  over  the  obstacles  which  daunted 
us.  We  can  no  longer  find  the  perils  which 
alarmed  us.  This  comes  about  with  such  ease  and 
stillness  that  we  lose  the  sense  of  struggle  and  of 
combat. 

Revivals  of  religion  often  take  on  this  look. 
The  more  powerful  and  pui-e  they  are,  the  more 
still  and  godlike.     At  such  periods  sanguine  be- 


28  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTiV3IENT. 

lievers  are  apt  to  think  the  age  of  conflict  for  the 
Church  is  over,  and  the  latter  days  of  peace  and 
tran(|uil  progress  are  dawning.  In  the  great 
awakenings  in  New  England,  under  the  preaching 
of  the  l{^^v.  Drs.  Lyman  Beecher  and  Nettleton,  it 
was  a  favorite  theme  of  gratulation  t<>  them,  that 
probably  the  closing  age  of  this  world's  pilgrimage 
was  near  at  hand,  and  the  golden  visions  of  Isaiali 
were  about  to  ])e  realized.  Tiiey  seemed  to  them- 
selves to  stand  still,  and  see  the  salvation  of  the 
Lord. 

5.  Minorities  of  honest  and  earnest  nwn,  devoted 
to  a  great  cau^e^  should  never  he  opposed  heedlessly. 
If  it  is  God's  method  to  begin  great  changes  for 
good  by  putting  into  the  hearts  of  a  few  men 
great  ideas  and  great  enterprises  and  great  expec- 
tation, we  need  to  be  cautious  how  we  treat  men 
who  man  be  spiritual  pioneers.  It  is  the  way  of 
the  world  to  frown  them  down.  They  are  branded 
with  scornful  nicknames.  Fanatics,  madmen, 
fools,  men  call  them.  "  The  crazy  tinker "  was 
the  title  by  which  the  world  labelled  and  libelled 
the  author  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  '•  Method- 
ists,"  "Puritans,"  "Quakers," — all  nicknames  at 
first.  Not  so  will  the  wise  and  candid  treat  such 
men. 

Fanaticism  may  always  be  detected  by  its  affinity 
with  malign  passions.  Religious  earnestness  is  not 
fanaticism.  Novelty  in  religious  thought  and 
theory   of    life    is    not    presumptively   visionary. 


GOD   WORKS    WITH   I^rTNORITIES.  20 

Tliat  men  turn  the  world  iipsiile  dowu,  is  no  proof 
that  they  are  madmen.  St.  Paul  did  that.  When 
men  are  obviously  moved  by  profound  convictions, 
and  are  in  dead  earnest  in  proclaiming  them,  if 
they  are  honest,  candid,  prayerful,  unselfish  men, 
and  do  not  contradict  either  the  word  of  God  or 
the  common  sense  of  men,  they  deserve  a  hearing. 
They  mai/  /«■  heralds  of  a  new  era  of  Chi'istiau 
progress.  'I'heir  ideas  mai/  be  from  God.  The 
l)ower  wliieh  moves  them  mai/ be  the  power  of  God. 
Tjieir  self-conlidence  may  be  a  tlivine  assurance, 
prophetic  of  the  future.  "The  homely  beauty  of 
the  good  old  cause  "  may  be  about  to  spring  into 
new  life  and  glory  in  their  hands. 

Take  care  that  you  do  not  recklessly  denounce 
and  deride  sueh  men,  lest  you  should  denounce 
and  tleriile  (Jod.  It  is  like  God  to  raise  up  such 
men,  and  inspire  them,  and  send  them  to  his  peo- 
ple, as  he  sent  the  old  prophets.  A  docile  s])irit 
will  welcome  God's  teaehing,  come  in  what  form 
it  may.  God  usually  sends  in  forms  which  men 
have  not  expected.  The  true  attitude  of  a  Chris- 
tian thinker  and  worker  toward  such  phenomena 
is  one  of  vigilance  and  candor.  \\1sd()ni  did  not 
die  with  our  fathers ;  neither  will  it  die  with  us. 
Old  men  will  not  carry  it  out  of  the  world  with 
them.  New  truth  must  be  expected  from  new 
men.  The  world  has  yet  to  see  a  great  many  John 
the  Baptists,  voices  in  the  wilderness,  forerunners 
of  great  eras. 


30  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Let  US,  th.en,  be  on  the  lookout  for  such  men. 
Let  us  greet  them  with  a  God-speed  when  they 
make  their  divine  credentials  clear.  Let  us  keep 
our  fades  in  abe3'anee  to  our  convictions.  Wc  k)ve 
what  we  are  used  to.  We  revere  the  ancient. 
We  all  have  roots  in  tlie  venerable  past.  Tliis  is 
well.  Yet  the  grandest  arena  of  (iod's  working  is 
the  future.  A  C'liristian's  treasure  sliould  be  tliere. 
Ours  is  a  religion  of  liopc,  of  expectation,  of  on- 
looking  to  golden  ages  yet  to  come.  Bk^ssed  were 
those  Jews  in  our  Lord's  time  who  strxxl  waiting 
for  his  coming,  ready  to  receive  him  with  open 
hearts.  Blessed,  too,  are  the  foreseeing  men  and 
women  of  all  ages,  who  are  always  watching  for 
the  morning ;  praying  for  great  things  ;  working 
for  great  things;  expecting  great  things;  bending 
forward,  and  listening  for  the  projdietic  voices; 
quick  to  see  the  great  light  in  the  heavens,  when 
it  lirst  gilds  the  tops  of  tlie  eastern  liills. 

6.  Within  the  Church  of  Christ  itself  is  to  fie 
found  a  minority  of  believers  ii'hom  God  regards  with 
peculiar  complacency.  An  eminent  clergyman  of 
Philadelphia  once  expressed  the  opinion  that  'a 
majority  of  the  professed  followers  of  Christ  do 
not  add  any  appreciable  strength  to  the  spiritual 
power  of  the  Chiu-ch.  It  saddens  one  to  think 
that  this  mav  be  true.  Be  it  true  or  not,  the  fact 
cannot  be  doubted  that  there  is  within  the  Church 
a  body  of  believers  of  peculiar  spirituality  of  char- 
acter and  consistency  of  life,  who  are  generally  a 
minority. 


GOD   WORKS    WJTU   >rTNORITIES.  31 

There  is  a  church  within  the  Cluircli.  St.  Joliii 
ill  his  vision  of  the  future  deckires,  ''  Blessed  and 
holy  is  he  that  hath  part  in  the  fr><t  resurrection. 
They  shall  be  kings  and  priests  unto  God,  and 
shall  reign  with  him  a  thousand  years."  Whatevei 
that  may  mean,  it  implies  unulation  in  the  spiritual 
rank  of  the  redeemed.  This  tallies  with  what  we 
see  in  the  Church  on  earth.  Tiiere  are  Christians 
who  always  live  near  to  God.  They  are  obviously 
bent  on  living  as  Christ  lived.  Thry  live  as  if 
they  belonged  to  (Jod.  Their  property  they  treat 
as  his,  not  their  own.  They  are  always  ready  for 
Cluistian  work.  A  revival  of  religion  never  takes 
them  by  surprise.  They  live  in  a  revival  perpetu- 
ally. They  are  men  and  women  of  much  prayer. 
Pastors  depend  upon  them  in  emergencies,  as  they 
cannot  upon  all  professed  believers.  We  always 
know  where  to  lind  them,  and  never  find  them 
in  the  wrong  place,  on  the  wrong  side,  saying 
the  wrong  word,  doing  the  wrong  thing. 

Theirs  is  not  .a  religion  of  form,  not  a  religion 
of  intermittent  and  erratic  feeling,  not  a  religion 
of  resthetic  taste,  but  a  religion  of  deep  and  con- 
trolling principle.  As  a  spiritual  power,  they  are 
the  vanguard  of  the  Church.  They  are  the  spir- 
itual aristocracy  of  Christ's  kingdom.  These  are 
thcv  who  shall  sit  on  his  right  hand  and  on  his  left 
without  asking  for  the  dignity.  Princes  are  they  in 
l)rayer,  conquerors  in  conflict  with  the  powers  of 
evil,  saints  to  whom  the  truculent  criticism  of  the 
world  even  does  not  refuse  the  title. 


32  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Almost  every  large  church  contains  a  group  of 
such  Christians,  tew  or  more,  yet  commonly  a 
minority.  Sometimes  they  can  be  numbered  on 
one's  fingers.  "I  have  one  man  in  my  church," 
said  an  aged  pastor  not  long  ago,  —  "I  have  one 
man  on  whom  I  can  always  depend.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  have  another."  It  is  a  legitimate  ol> 
ject  of  prayer  and  Christian  aspiration,  to  be  num- 
bered among  those  chosen  few.  God  looks  upon 
them  with  complacent  joy.  Christ  sees  in  them  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul.  They  satisfy  him.  Like 
David,  they  are  men  after  God's  o\yi\  heart.  Like 
John,  they  are  beloved  disciples.  Like  Mary,  they 
have  chosen  the  good  part.  Like  Paul,  they  fight 
a  good  fight.  Theu-  very  presence  in  the  world, 
the  world  feels  as  a  power  on  the  side  of  right. 
Every  good  cause  feels  the  loss  of  them  when  they 
die.  As  we  stand  beside  their  open  graves,  we 
thank  God  anew  for  the  doctrine  of  immortality. 
One  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory.  So 
also  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 


A   INIODEL   OF   PRAYER  IN   EMERGENCIES. 

Ami  Asa  cried  unto  the  Lord  his  God,  and  said,  Lord,  it  is 
notliin{T  •with  thee  to  help,  whether  with  many,  or  with  them 
that  have  no  power:  help  us,  O  Lord  our  God;  for  we  rest  on 
tluH',  and  in  thy  nauie  we  go  apiinst  this  multitude.  O  I^ord, 
thou  art  our  God;  let  not  man  prevail  against  thee.  — 2  Citron. 
xiv.  11. 

ri^  I  IE  praters  recorded  in  the  Bible  are  almost 
4-  all  of  thorn  luodehs  in  their  place.  Such  is 
the  prayer  of  the  Jewish  monarch  in  the  text. 

King  Asa  is  in  a  great  strait.  To  all  human 
appearance,  his  throne  and  his  life  are  in  peril. 
His  Ethiopian  enemy  is  hi  battle  array  before 
him,  M'ith  numbers  in  the  proportion  to  his  own 
of  about  two  to  one.  His  defeat  is  morall}'  cer- 
tain. He  and  his  staff  must  have  felt,  in  that 
valley  of  Ephratah,  as  they  looked  over  the 
roods  of  glittering  spears,  as  our  own  Wa.shington 
felt  in  Valley  Forge,  in  the  most  dismal  winter  of 
the  Revolution.  He  seems  to  himself  to  have 
come  to  the  place  of  extreme  catastrophe.  He 
he  can  only  lie  down  and  die. 

Like  the  '"  Father  of  his  Country,"  the  Jewish 
king  betakes  himself  to  prayer.  It  is  about  all 
there  is  left  for  him  to  do,  preliminary  to  the  fatal 

33 


34  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

morrow.  His  petition  is  very  brief.  In  great 
emergencies  oui-  wants  are  summed  up  in  few 
words.  We  have  no  heart  for  more.  Tliis  is  the 
model  of  prayer  in  an  emergency.  It  is  made  up  of 
four  fragments,  eacli  of  which  teaches  us  a  funda- 
mental element  in  the  spirit  of  prayer  in  such  an 
exigency. 

1.  Prayer  in  emergencies  should  he  founded  on  a 
strong  faith  in  God's  indi'pendence  of  human 
resources  and  methods  of  judgment.  Hear  the 
stricken  monarch,  as  he  kneels  beneath  the 
weight  of  a  kingdom:  "Lord,  it  is  nothing  to 
thee  to  help,  whether  with  many  or  with  tliem 
that  have  no  power."  This  goes  to  the  heart  of 
the  case.  Nothing  else  equals  the  situation. 
''True,"  we  seem  to  hear  him  plucking  up  his 
own  courage  in  the  extremity,  —  "  true,  I  am  out- 
numbered. Every  man  of  us  must  engage  two 
to-morrow.  The  best  military  science  of  the  age 
is  pitted  against  us.  These  Ethiopian  invaders 
are  no  mean  folk.  They  are  stalwart  men,  led  by 
able  generals,  flushed  with  victories.  They  are 
doubtless  laughing  at  our  temerity,  and  glorying 
in  our  coming  shame.  And  by  all  human  calcu- 
lations they  are  right.  They  are  sure  to  win : 
we  are  doomed  to  fail.  The  laws  of  war  bid  us 
make  the  best  terms  of  peace  we  can.  Now  is  the 
time  for  a  masterly  retreat.  But —  No:  not 
so,  not  so !  What  are  numbers  to  the  God  of 
Judah?     AVhat  are  military  tactics,  and  captains 


A   MODEL   OF   PKAYER   IN   E:MEIIGENCIES.      35 

of  renown,  and  the  pomp  of  conquest,  —  what 
are  they  all  to  the  God  of  Israel  ?  A  small  mat- 
ter, —  a  very  small  matter.  I  remind  me  of  the 
Red  Sea.  Our  God  is  the  living  God.  He  made 
the  heavens  and  the  earth.  The  nations  are  as  a 
drop  in  a  Inickct.  He  taketh  up  the  islands  as  a 
very  little  thing.  Yes,  Lord,  it  is  nothing  to  thee 
to  help  us  in  this  emergency.  It  is  like  thee  to  give 
the  battle  to  the  weak.  It  is  like  thee  to  over- 
tlirqw  the  many  by  the  few." 

Military  history,  in  every  age,  is  not  destitute 
of  similar  occurrences.  There  have  been  Chris- 
tian generals,  who,  to  the  world's  eye,  have 
seemed  to  have  mysterious  successes.  Tlicy  who 
watched  the  career  of  Gen.  Havelock  in  India 
observed  this  feature  in  liis  history.  His  supe- 
riors used  to  put  him  upon  service  to  wliich  they 
dared  not  send  otlier  men.  They  said  that  he 
often  succeeded,  where,  by  the  laws  of  war,  he 
oucfht  not  to  succeed.  Whether  due  to  his  habits 
of  pra3'er,  or  not,  there  was  the  fact. 

In  our  own  civil  war,  on  one  occasion,  the  gen- 
eral in  command  of  certain  forces  broke  out  with 
the  exclamation,  on  the  eve  of  battle,  "We  have 
got  them  now,  and  they  know  it.  God  Almighty 
cannot  save  them."  So  he  had  "got  them,"  by 
all  human  reckoning  of  the  chances.  His  staff 
responded,  "•  Yes,  we  are  sure  of  them."  But 
it  happened,  —  how  much  it  had  to  do  with  the 
fortunes  of  the  da}-,  we  will  not  presume  to  say, 


36  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

but  it  happened.  —  that  the  commander-in-chief 
on  the  other  side  was  a  praying  man.  He  had 
that  morning  spent  an  hour  in  his  tent,  invoking 
divine  interposition  in  tlie  coming  conflict.  The 
close  of  the  day  found  hnn  again  in  his  tent  offer- 
ing tlianksgiving  for  a  victory,  while  the  presump- 
tuous general  who  thought  that  "  God  Almiglity 
could  not  defeat  him  "  was  in  ignominious  flight 
down  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah. 

Why  should  it  not  be  so  ?  Such  men  command 
invisible  allies.  They  invoke  the  onsCt  of  spirit- 
ual battalions.  They  lead  their  enemies  into  am- 
buscades of  angelic  legions.  If  our  eyes  were  not 
holdcn,  wc  might  see  that  the  very  air  is  full  of 
them. 

Arc  there  not,  in  the  lives  of  us  all,  emergencies 
in  whicli  our  deliverance  may  depend  on  our  real- 
izing to  our  faith  the  principle  that  God  is  in- 
dependent of  the  resources  which  decide  human 
judgment?  In  certain  extreme  hours,  very  much 
may  depend  on  the  depth  of  our  faith  in  this. 
Our  own  courage  may  depend  on  it.  Our  power 
to  energize  others  may  depend  on  it.  Our  power 
with  God  may  depend  on  it.  We  need  to  feel 
that  prayer  may  command  improbable  results, 
because  it  commands  supernatural  resources. 

]\Iuch  is  gained  also  when  we  appreciate  the 
ease  \vith  which  God  acliieves  marvellous  issues 
in  response  to  prayer.  "  A  God  doing  wonders  " 
is  one  of  his  significaut  titles,  —  significant  of  the 


A  MODEL  OF  PRAYER  IN  EMERGENCIES.   37 

usage  of  his  dominion.  To  him  there  are  no  such 
things  as  emergencies.  Prayer  never  finds  liim 
overwhehned  by  surprises. 

"  To  thee  there's  nothing  old  appears,  — 
Great  God,  there's  nothin-j  new." 

The  magnitude  of  oiu'  requests  never  startles 
his  comix)sure.  In  his  serene  life,  there  are  no 
extreme  hours,  no  critical  junctures,  no  unforeseen 
contingencies.  He  is  never  conscious  of  an  hour 
when  his  resoui'ces  run  low,  when  Ids  powers  are 
put  to  the  strain,  when  he  is  weary  and  would 
pause  to  rest.  The  affairs  of  the  universe  are 
never  a  bm-den  to  him. 

Note  the  biblical  way  of  describing  the  acts  of 
God:  "He  «^a^t',  and  it  was  done.  He  connnand- 
ed,  and  it  stood  fast.  God  said.  Let  there  be  light, 
and  there  was  light."  The  serenity  of  the  stars 
characterizes  all  his  working.  So  calmly,  so  easi- 
ly, with  such  assurance  of  reserved  forces  and 
unused  energies,  does  he  perform,  in  answer  to 
prayer,  achievements  wliich  overwhelm  our  puny 
thought  by  theu'  magnitude.  Armies  in  the  shock 
of  battle  he  sways  as  easily  as  the  breathing  of  an 
infant. 

A  few  years  ago  there  appeared  in  our  skies 
the  most  brilliant  coraet  of  the  century.  It  was 
six  millions  of  miles  distant  from  our  globe.  Such 
was  the  speed  of  its  movement,  that,  if  it  had  been 
aimed   hither  in   its   march,  it  would  have  come 


J95 


38  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

crasliing  upon  us  in  less  than  two  days,  with  the 
momentum  of  a  liundrecl  and  fifty  thousand  miles 
an  hour.  Yet  God  held  that  blazing  meteor  in  its 
appointed  groove,  worn  by  millions  of  years  of 
travel,  so  that  it  glided  gently  across  our  world's 
orbit  with  motion  imperceptible.  It  liad  tlie  still- 
ness of  a  painting.  Our  infant  children  looked 
out  upon  it,  and  bade  it  good-night,  as  a  beautiful 
plaything  in  the  sky,  witliout  so  much  as  tlie  clos- 
ing of  an  eyelid  at  tlie  eternal  rush  of  its  progress. 
So  calm,  so  facile,  so  beautifully  silent,  are  God's 
wonder-workings  in  answer  to  prayer.  Mysteries 
so  vast  and  so  anomalous  that  astonished  anffels 
desire  to  look  into  them,  occur  with  the  ease  of  a 
summer  twilitjht. 

We  need  to  believe  this.  With  all  our  hearts 
we  need  to  accept  it  as  the  natural  way  of  God's 
procedure.  We  need  to  be  uplifted  on  the  wings 
of  faith  to  the  divine  plane  of  things  in  our  emer- 
gencies. Then  we  can  look  dotvn  upon  them  as 
aeronauts  above  the  clouds  look  down  upon  thun- 
der-storms and  tornadoes,  from  a  region  of  unut- 
terable stillness  and  under  an  unclouded  sun. 

2.  The  example  before  us  suggests,  as  a  second 
element  in  believing  prayer  in  emergencies,  a  pro- 
found seiise  of  the  inadequacy  of  all  other  sources  of 
relief  but  God.  We  need  to  feel  that  we  are  shut 
in  to  God,  and  God  only.  "  Help  us,  O  Lord  our 
God,  for  we  rest  in  thee."  This  is  the  plea  of  the 
imperilled  monarch.     This  is  his  argument  for  the 


A   MODEL  OF   PRAYER   IN   EMERGENCIES.      39 

rescue  of  his  tottering  kingdom :  "  We  are  help- 
less. Our  forces  are  outnumbered  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  daring.  We  can  die,  but  we  can 
do  no  more.  By  all  chances,  as  men  count  them, 
we  are  doomed.  We  do  not  know  wliich  way  to 
turn.  There  is  no  turning  for  us.  We  march 
right  on  to  death.  We  are  shut  up  to  the  arm  of 
God.     llt'l}).  Lord,  or  we  perish." 

This  familiar  element  in  the  spirit  of  prayer, 
emergencies  force  upon  our  thought.  Often  divine 
Providence  seems  to  second  the  procedure  of  di- 
vine grace  by  leaving  us  in  a  great  emergency  till 
we  feel  this.  Deliverance  is  slow  in  coming. 
Prayer  is  not  answered  in  a  breath.  The  (rial 
gathers  intensity.  The  crisis  deepens.  The  lire 
waxes  hot.  The  object  seems  to  be  to  quicken  in 
the  soul  the  sense  of  God  as  a  reality  because  he 
is  felt  to  be  a  necessity.  Ruin  here,  ruin  there, 
ruin  everywhere  except  in  the  one  thought  that 
there  is  a  God.  Intense  conceptions  of  the  reality 
of  God  come  to  some  minds  in  no  other  way  than 
through  this  secret  alliance  of  providence  and  grace 
in  the  discipline.  The  needed  convictions  have  to 
be  burned  in  by  fiery  trial. 

But  when  the  end  is  gained,  when  God  becomes 
an  infinite  fact,  when  we  become  content  to  go 
fearless  into  solitude  with  God,  to  cast  every 
thing  upon  God,  to  rest  in  God,  then  believing 
prayer  wells  up  sweet  and  fresh  from  the  heart, 
and  flows  out  in  glad  assurance  from  the  lips. 
Then  relief,  success,  conquest,  is  not  far  off. 


40  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

In  this  spirit,  not  only  the  great  exigencies  of 
the  Church  need  to  be  met,  but  the  emergencies 
of  individual  life  as  well.  Said  Whitefield  in  one 
of  the  crises  of  his  life,  "I  have  thrown  myself 
blindfold  into  His  almighty  arms."  Said  the  late 
Rev.  Dr.  (Jrilfin  in  a  similar  exigency,  "I  feel 
that  God  is  all  that  is  left  to  me." 

Every  human  life  lies  through  some  such  valleys 
of  Ephratah,  where  the  man  seems  to  himself  shut 
out  from  all  human  sources  of  support,  and  shut 
in  to  solitude  witli  God.  If  such  crises  arc  met  in 
the  spirit  of  believing  prayer,  they  are  tlie  pre- 
cursors of  triumph.  Some  conquest  of  opposing 
forces,  or  some  self-conquest  preparative  to  heav- 
en, or  some  conquest  over  powers  of  darkness  of 
which  only  God  and  angels  are  the  witnesses,  is  in 
the  near  future. 

3.  Prayer  in  emergencies,  as  illustrated  in  tlie 
example  before  us,  involves  a  third  element.  It  is 
a  profound  identification  with  God.  "  In  thy  name 
we  go  against  this  multitude."  That  is,  "  The 
battle  is  not  oiu-s,  but  God's.  Oiu-  interests  are 
lost  in  God's  interests.  Selfish  desire  can  have  no 
place  here.  We  are  lifted  and  driven  be3-ond  all 
that.     For  God  we  pray ;  for  God  we  fight." 

So  Luther  felt  in  the  great  crisis  of  his  life. 
"  Here  stand  I  for  God :  I  can  do  no  other."  So 
the  crreat  leaders  of  the  Church  have  marched  to 
victory.  Until  the  cause  at  stake  is  thus  identi- 
fied with  God,  prevailing  prayer  is  impossible.    In 


A  MODEL  OF  PRAYER  IN  EMERGENCIES.   41 

a  selfish  prayer  we  beat  the  winds.  Nothing  is 
sure  in  this  world  but  the  purposes  of  God.  No 
interests  are  safe  but  his.  No  cause  is  secure  but 
his. 

Until  we  can  get  our  private  individual  concerns 
within  the  lines  of  his  plans,  we  can  be  sure  of 
notliing.  This  is  the  province  of  believing  prayer 
in  emergencies,  —  to  lift  us  up  and  out  from  our 
petty  selves,  and  so  unite  us  with  God  that  our 
interests  are  liis  because  his  interests  have  become 
ours.  Our  will  is  his  because  his  will  has  been 
accepted  as  ours.  Then  prayer  becomes  but  a 
prophecy  of  his  decree.  Its  success  is  a  foregone 
conclusion.  While  we  are  speaking,  the  answer  is 
on  our  own  lips.  One  design,  doubtless,  of  great 
and  crushing  emergencies,  is  to  help  us  up  to  this 
summit  of  identification  with  God,  by  driving  us 
up  the  rocky  steep  that  leads  thither. 

4.  One  other  phase  of  prayer  in  such  emergen- 
cies, suggested  by  the  fragment  of  biograjihy  be- 
fore us,  is  a  hearty  recogmtiun  of  God's  oivnership 
of  us.  "  O  Lord,  thou  art  our  God ;  let  not  man 
prevail  against  thee." 

To  Jewish  thought  the  force  of  this  language 
^^  was  intensified  by  comparison  with  pagan  theories 
of  Godhead.  Every  nation  was  believed  to  have 
its  deity.  Ethiopia  had  her  god,  and  Judaea  had 
hers.  When  a  Jew  therefore  said,  "  Thou  art  our 
God,"  he  meant  to  acknowledge  God's  ownership 
of  him  and  all  his  belongings.      That  any  other 


42  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTA5IENT. 

nation  should  prevail  against  Jiula}a,  meant  to 
Jewish  thought  a  victory  of  man  over  the  living 
God. 

This  gave  deep  significance  to  Jewish  prayer  on 
the  eve  of  hattle.  Not  only  was  his  cause  God's 
cause,  l)y  liis  l)cing  identilied  with  God,  but  he 
and  all  he  had  belonged  to  Gt)d,  His  success, 
therefore,  was  God's  success,  and  his  defeat  was 
God's  defeat.  "Let  not  inan  prevail  against 
Thee  !  " 

This  conception  of  prayer  in  critic^il  exigencies 
fills  up  the  Christian  idea  of  it  to  ihi-  brim.  We 
hdnni/  to  God.  Whatever  concerns  us  concerns 
liim.  Our  sorrow  is  his  sorrow.  Our  joy  is  his 
joy.  If  it  is  best  for  us  tliat  we  be  delivered,  it 
is  as  much  to  God  as  to  us  that  he  shall  send 
deliverance.  No  wedge  can  be  driven  between, 
to  separate  him  from  us,  his  interests  from  f»urs. 
The  sacredness  and  eternity  of  divine  ownership 
are  pledged  to  our  success. 

By  the  right  of  creation  ice  helony  to  God.  \\y 
the  right  of  faithful  and  undying  friendship  we 
belong  to  God.  By  the  right  of  eternal  redemp- 
tion we  helony  to  God.  By  the  right  of  purchase 
with  the  blood  of  Christ  tee  helony  to  God.  Will 
God  desert  his  o^^Tl  with  such  rights  as  these? 


AN  ANCIENT   REVIVAL   OF   TJELir.TON. 

When  Asa  hoanl  those  words,  he  took  courage,  ami  put  away 
thf  aliominalilc  iilols  out  of  all  tlm  land,  .  .  .  and  rrncwed  tho 
altar  of  tin-  Lord.  .  .  .  Ami  he  (gathered  all  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin, and  the  strauf^L-rs  with  them:  .  .  .  for  tlicy  fell  to  him  in 
alujndance,  whon  they  saw  that  the  Lonl  his  CkmI  wjus  with  him. 
.  .  .  And  they  ent<r«d  into  a  eovenaut  to  sitk  the  Lord  (Jod  of 
their  fathers,  with  all  tlu-ir  h<-art  and  with  all  their  soul.  .  .  . 
And  they  sware  unto  the  lAtul  with  a  loml  voiee,  and  with  shout- 
in;;,  and  with  trumiu-t.s,  antl  with  eorm-ts.  And  all  .hnlah  re- 
joiced at  the  oath:  for  t'.iey  had  sworn  with  all  their  heart,  and 
sought  him  with  their  wlu)le  desire;  and  lu*  was  found  of  them: 
and  the  I..ord  gave  them  rest  round  about. —  2  CnKON.  xv.  8,  9, 
r_*-lo. 

EEVIVALS  are  supposed  by  many  to  be  of 
J  luodorii  origin  ;  their  opponents  say,  of  mod- 
ern invention.  Not  so  ;  for  here  in  the  heart  of 
tlie  Ohl  Testament  we  find  a  reeord  of  a  revival 
which  tallies,  with  singular  acciu-acy,  with  similar 
works  of  divine  graee  in  our  own  day. 

As  the  narrative  runs,  there  has  been  a  long 
period  of  religious  decline.  Israel  has  been 
"without  the  true  God,  and  without  a  teaching 
l>riest,  and  without  law."  The  services  of  religion 
have  been  grossly  neglected :  idolatry  has  over- 
spread the  kingdom.  Then  trouble  comes.  As 
usual,  God  rebukes  iiTeligion  by  calamity.     War 

43 


44  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

ravages  the  land.  No  man's  life  <»r  j)roperty  is 
safe.     "  God  did  vex  them  with  all  adversity." 

In  their  aflliftii)n  they  turn  again  to  God. 
"  They  sought  him,  and  he  was  found  of  them." 
God  is  never  far  off  from  men  in  trouble.  An 
obscure  j»rophet,  nowhere  else  named  in  the 
Scriptures,  rouses  the  king  to  attempt  a  general 
reformation  of  the  people.  The  king  sets  to  work 
with  a  will,  and  a  wide-spread  work  of  ilivine 
grace  is  the  result.  It  is  a  clear  case  of  deliberate 
seeking  for  and  working  for  a  revival  of  religion, 
and  with  success. 

1.  Varying  somewhat  the  order  of  the  narra- 
tive, we  see  first  that  th'  heart  of  a  revival  lien  in  a 
renetval  of  the  covenant  of  the  Chiirrh  with  God. 
"  They  entered  into  a  covenant  to  seek  the  Lord 
God  of  their  fathers,  with  all  their  heart  and  with 
all  their  soul."  And  again,  '•  They  had  sworn 
with  all  their  heart,  and  sought  him  with  their 
whole  desire."  Clearly  they  mean  to  make  a 
business  of  it.  It  is  no  half-way  affair.  With 
the  stern  zeal  characteristic  of  a  semi-civilized 
age  and  a  theocratic  government,  they  determine 
that  opposers  shall  suffer  for  it.  "  Whosoever 
would  not  seek  the  Lord  .should  be  put  to  death." 
Yes,  they  are  evidently  in  dead  earnest.  By  their 
theory  the  whole  nation  is  the  Church ;  and  the 
Church  must  be  purified,  cost  what  it  may. 

One  of  the  laws  of  the  working  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  disclosed   here.      A  revival  of  religion 


AN   ANCIENT   REVIVAL   OF   RELIGION.  45 

becfins  in  the  Cliuicli  of  Christ.  Rarely,  if  ever, 
does  an  exception  occur,  (iod  does  not  work 
independently  of  his  chosen  people.  Tiie  con- 
version of  the  world  waits  on  the  will  of  the 
Chm-cli. 

Tiie  history  i>f  ri'\ivals  emphasizes  this  law. 
A  dead  Church  holds  back  from  God  the  dead 
world.  An  awakened  Church  is  the  pioneer  of  an 
awakened  world.  A  fragment  of  the  Church  vital- 
ized by  the  Spirit  of  God  will  be  felt  l)y  a  godless 
community.  CJodly  faith  is  a  great  power.  ll 
takes  but  little  of  it  to  set  men  thinking  and 
asking  what  it  means.  Apply  a  little  fire,  in  one 
small  spot,  to  a  block  of  marble,  and  you  soon 
send  a  fissure  rending  through  the  whole.  So  the 
quickening  of  one  small  church  b}'  a  new  infusion 
of  divine  grace  will  break  up  the  solidity  of  sin 
through  a  whole  community.  A  little  group  of  men 
who  mean  what  they  say,  and  who  say  the  great 
truths  of  God  and  an  eternal  world,  will  always 
get  a  hearing.  Crowds  often  follow  one  man  who 
has  received  a  new  baptism  from  on  high.  There 
is  a  wonderful  magnetism  about  such  a  man. 

2.  A  second  feature  in  this  ancient  revival  of 
religion  was  a  public  proclamation  of  a  revived  faith 
hrfore  the  trorhl.  It  is  often  objected  to  modern 
revivals,  that  men  make  so  much  ado  about  them, 
luligion,  it  is  said,  is  a  still  affair.  It  lies  between 
a  man's  own  soul  and  God.  We  are  commanded 
to  pray  in   secret   chambers   with  the  door  shut. 


46  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Why  all  this  noise  about  living  to  God  and  saving 
souls?  Kid  us  of  this  cant.  Give  us  rather  the 
poetry  of  a  silent  faith.  Let  each  man  look  after 
his  own  soul,  and  not  annoy  his  neighbors.  As 
one  such  wise  man  once  expressed  it,  ••  Let  each 
man  have  a  snug  little  Zion  of  his  own." 

Not  so  thinks  the  awakened  king  of  Judah  antl 
his  subaltern  chiefs.  Tliey  make  a  great  ado  about 
the  regeneration  of  the  realm.  They  go  through 
the  land  like  the  hot-headed  reformers  in  the 
Netherlands ;  pulling  down  idols,  and  rebuilding 
desecrated  altars,  and  putting  a  stop  to  ungodly 
rites  of  worship.  Small  chance  is  theirs  if  they 
try  to  keep  the  business  secret.  "  They  sware 
unto  the  Lord  with  a  loud  voice,  and  with  shout- 
ing, and  with  trumpets,  and  with  cornets."  Camj)- 
meetings  and  tent-preaching  and  tabernacles  are  a 
small  matter  compared  with  this  uprising  of  a 
whole  nation.  Jt  is  more  like  the  ui)-springing  of 
our  country  when  Sumter  fell.  We  made  no  silent 
affair  of  that. 

Religious  men  in  earnest  are  too  much  in  earnest 
to  be  still  about  it.  They  are  moved  by  a  great 
power.  It  will  express  itself  as  becomes  a  great 
power.  Out  it  will  come  in  speech,  in  act,  in 
prayer,  in  song,  in  great  enterprise,  and  in  glad 
achievement.  It  is  the  instinct  of  religious  faith 
to  bear  its  witness  to  the  world.  It  is  not  ashamed. 
Why  should  it  skulk?  God  has  given  a  great 
deliverance :  men  must  proclaim  it  to  those  who 


AN  ANCIENT   KEVIVAL   OF   RELIGION.  47 

need  the  same.  The  pearl  is  of  great  price :  ineii 
will  rejoice  over  it. 

A  certain  degree  of  publicity,  therefore,  in  a 
spiritual  quickening  of  the  Church,  is  inevitable. 
It  is  but  natural.  Other  great  awakenings  work 
in  the  same  way.  We  do  not  denounce  the  ardor 
of  a  political  campaign  as  the  hysteria  of  old 
women  and  sick  folk.  We  do  not  call  the  rush  to 
the  gold-mines  of  California  and  tlie  Black  Hills 
cant.  Why,  then,  judge  by  a  different  law  tlie 
great  awakenings  of  men  to  the  realities  of  eter- 
nity? The  Black  Hills,  with  all  their  golden 
treasure,  will  one  day  burn  to  cinders  in  volcanic 
fire-  The  souls  of  the  men  now  crowding  there 
will  then  be  still  living  somewhere,  undying  as 
God  is.  Where  ?  That  is  the  question  the  Chiu-ch 
tries  to  answer  in  a  great  revival. 

On  one  occasion  Etlmuud  Burke  came  upon  the 
hustings  to  contest  a  seat  in  Parliament  before  an 
excited  assembly.  The  people  had  come  together 
with  preparations  for  bonfii-es  and  illuminations, 
and  processions  marcliing  to  the  sound  of  di-um 
and  fife.  When  he  had  just  mounted  the  plat- 
form, the  news  came  that  his  opponent,  who  was 
to  have  met  him  there  that  morning,  had  been  just 
found  dead  in  Ids  bed.  Both  Burke  and  his  hear- 
ers were  so  overwhelmed  by  that  momentary  open- 
ing of  the  eternal  world  to  their  dim  vision  that 
he  could  not  speak,  and  they  were  in  no  mood  to 
hear.      He  only  lifted  his  voice  for  one  solemn 


48  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

moment,  and  exclaimed,  "  What  shadows  we  are, 
and  what  shadows  we  pursue  1 "  Was  that  cant  ? 
Yet  a  revival  of  religion  is  no  other  than  just  that 
awakening  to  the  reality  of  eternal  things,  and  a 
permanent  setting  of  the  current  of  popular 
thouglit  in  that  channel.     Why  not? 

3.  This  old  Jewisli  revival  developed  a  third 
feature.  It  icas  attended  ivith  a  great  influx  of  con- 
verts from  without.  "The  strangers  fell  to  him  out 
of  Israel  in  abundance,  when  they  saw  that  the 
Lord  his  God  was  ivith  hinu^  So  comluouly  works 
a  pure  revival  upon  the  world.  Very  rare  is  the 
exception  in  which  the  heart  of  the  world  does  not 
resjjond  to  the  heart  of  the  Church.  Growth  is 
the  law  of  all  life.  A  tree  expands  from  the  life 
of  its  root.  Double  the  vitality  there,  and  you 
double  the  fruitage.  So  is  it  with  the  spiritual 
life,  of  which  the  Church  of  God  is  the  centre. 

"  They  saw  that  the  Lord  his  God  was  with  him." 
Tliis  is  the  conviction  with  which  a  pure  revival 
impresses  men  of  the  world.  A  feeling  of  awe 
often  becomes  general  in  a  community  in  which 
the  Holy  Spii'it  is  moving  with  great  power.  The 
consciousness  of  God  fills  hearts  unused  to  such 
convictions. 

JNIany  years  ago  an  eminent  officer  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  Massachusetts  returned  from  Europe 
to  his  home  in  an  inland  town  in  which  a  power- 
ful work  of  divine  grace  was  in  progress.  He  had 
not  heard  of  it.     As  he  passed  through  the  streets, 


AN  AKCIENT   REVIVAI^   OF   RELIGION.  49 

the  look  of  tilings  seemed  strange  to  liim.  The 
countenances  of  those  whom  he  met  impressed 
him  with  a  sense  of  something  unusual.  The 
church-bell  was  tolling  at  an  unusual  hour.  "  What 
has  happened  here  ?  "  was  his  inquiry.  *'  Something 
is  in  the  air.  Tilings  seem  like  the  day  of  judg- 
ment." There  was  no  mystery  in  this.  It  wuk  like 
the  day  of  judgment.  God  was  there,  deciding  the 
eternal  destiny  of  hmidreds  of  souls.  It  proved  so 
to -that  awe-struck  man,  for  he  was  soon  one  of  the 
rejoicing  converts. 

In  the  great  awakening  under  President  Ed- 
wards, men  cried  out  in  great  assemblies  under 
the  overpowering  sense  of  the  reality  of  God's 
being.  The  same  phenomenon  occui-red  diu'ing 
the  "  Year  of  Grace "  in  Ireland.  Under  the 
preaching  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Blackburn  of  Mis- 
souri, men  were  known  to  rush  out  of  churches 
and  off  from  camping-grounds,  saying  that  they 
could  not  bear  the  terror  of  God's  presence,  which 
threatened  to  crush  them. 

Certain  animals  have  a  mysterious  sense  by 
which  they  tliscern  the  coming-on  of  an  earth- 
quake, or  the  presence  of  death,  before  the  dull 
eyes  and  ears  of  humankind  detect  them.  So 
there  seems  to  be  in  man  a  spuitual  sense  which 
under  certain  conditions  feels  the  presence  of  God 
as  it  cannot  at  other  times.  What  are  the  path- 
olocrical  affections  of  the  bodv,  often  witnessed  in 
intense  revivals,  but  the  succumbing  of  the  ner- 


50  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTA:kIENT. 

vous  system  to  spiritual  impressions  which  flesh 
and  blood  cannot  bear  with  cciuanimit  y  ?  They  are 
liints  of  that  awful  majesty  of  God  which  shook 
Mount  Sinai,  and  which  God  himself  expressed  in 
the  law,  "  No  man  ^iliall  see  me  and  live." 

4.  A  fourth  feature  of  a  true  revival  of  religion 
is  a  thorough  reformation  of  public  and  private  mor- 
als. "  Asa  took  courage,  and  put  away  the  abom- 
inable idols  out  of  all  the  land."  To  i)ut  away 
idolatrous  worship  was  what  \vc  should  call  a 
reformation  in  morals.  Idolatry  Wijs  immorality 
concentrated  in  most  liideous  forms.  No  religious 
zeal  could  have  been  genuine  in  a  monarch  which 
did  not  sweep  the  land  clean  of  them. 

Thus  in  every  so-called  revival,  the  critical  test 
of  its  genuineness  is  the  incpiiry,  "How  does  it 
affect  the  real  life  of  converts?"  It  is  in  perfect 
keeping  with  such  an  awakening  that  a  temper- 
ance revival  should  accompany  it.  The  most 
valuable  fruit  of  Mr.  Moody's  work  in  Boston 
during  the  winter  of  1870-77  was  believed  by 
saere  observers  to  be  the  reformation  of  hundreds 
of  inebriates  and  many  aban(h)ned  women,  —  re- 
formed because  religiously  converted.  They  attrib- 
ute their  reformation  to  no  other  cause  than 
their  new-found  religion.  The  metropolitan  police 
remarked  a  perceptible  diminution  of  the  crimes 
usually  caused  l)y  rum.  Rumsellers  complained 
that  their  business  was  interrupted.  There  are 
localities  in  New  York  and  Boston  where  once  a 


AN   ANCIENT   REVIVAL   OF   RELIGION.         51 

man  could  not  safely  go  unarmed  after  nightfall, 
but  where  now  a  woman  can  go  safely  at  midnight; 
and  the  power  which  has  wrought  the  change  is 
the  work  of  a  few  Cliristian  women  in  mission- 
schools. 

That  dishonest  men  l)ecome  honest ;  that  ftilso 
men  become  true  ;  tliat  drunkards  become  temper- 
ate ;  that  vile  men  l)ecome  pure ;  that  lost  women 
recover  the  purity  of  their  childhood ;  that  men 
of  intrigue  and  sharp  dealing  become  guileless  in 
act  and  speech ;  that  profane  men  become  rever- 
ent ;  that  sabbath-breakers  are  found  in  the  house 
of  God,  —  these  are  among  the  legitimate  tokens 
of  a  great  and  general  revival,  which  are  to  be 
reasonably  looked  for  if  it  is  a  work  of  God.  One 
of  the  most  significant  evidences  of  conversion 
was  given  by  a  poor  and  ignorant  man  to  a  com- 
mittee of  examination  for  his  admission  to  the 
church  wlicu  he  said,  "  I  don't  know  what  reli- 
gion has  done  for  me  in  my  business,  except  that 
I  have  burned  my  bushel-measure." 

An  apparent  religious  awakening  which  does  not 
result  in  making  converts  more  honest,  more  truth- 
ful, more  piu-e  in  private  morals,  is  not  worthy  of 
trust.  God  is  not  in  it.  The  payment  of  honest 
debts ;  dealing  in  trade  by  equity  rather  than  by 
law ;  the  giving-up  of  tricks  of  trade ;  a  living  price 
for  slop-work ;  the  sale  of  pure  milk ;  the  surrender 
of  trades  which  are  inimical  to  public  morals ;  the 
destruction   of  distilleries;    the   refusal   to   lease 


52  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMEI^^T. 

houses  for  immoral  uses,  and  hotels  for  the  sale  of 
alcoholic  liquors ;  care  not  to  be  ignorant  of  such 
leases ;  suffering  loss  of  dividends  for  the  observ- 
ance of  the  Lord's  Day  ;  the  honest  report  of  prop- 
erty to  assessors  ;  a  fair  day's  work  when  working 
for  the  Government ;  refusing  to  cheat  the  post- 
office  ;  truthful  invoices  of  imported  goods ;  honest 
oaths  at  the  custom-house ;  in  a  word,  freedom 
from  guile  in  transactions  of  business,  —  these  are 
among  the  proper  fruits  of  a  revival  of  religion. 
The  world  has  a  right  to  look  for  \hem.  The 
world  is  right  in  heaping  its  indignation  and  con- 
tempt on  any  religious  epidemic  which  does  not 
prove  its  right  to  exist  by  these  plain  signs  of  a  live 
conscience  in  worldly  affairs.  Shall  a  man  be  a 
smooth  and  smiling  communicant  in  God's  Church, 
doing  serAdce,  it  may  be,  at  the  Lord's  table,  and 
at  same  time  a  fit  candidate  for  the  penitentiary  ? 
God  is  on  the  side  of  the  world  in  its  indignant 
protest.  "  Your  new  moons  and  sabbaths,  and 
calling  of  assemblies,  I  cannot  away  with ;  incense 
is  an  abomination  unto  me  ;  when  ye  make  many 
prayers,  I  will  not  hear." 

Of  all  compounds  of  human  weakness  and 
depravity,  the  most  repulsive  is  a  bonfire  of  reli- 
gious cant,  wliich  is  all  feeling  and  no  principle, 
all  talk  and  no  character,  all  prayer  and  no  life,  all 
Sunday  and  no  week-day.  Ye  whited  sepulchres ! 
Ye  generation  of  vipers !  The  holiest  of  men  join 
the    indignant   outcry  of   the  world  against  such 


AN   ANCIENT   REVIVAL   OF   RELIGION.  53 

nauseating  hypocrisy.  That  is  a  wise  and  always 
timely  petition  of  the  Church  of  England :  "  From 
the  deceits  of  the  world,  from  the  crafts  of  the 
Devil,  good  Lord,  deliver  us  !  " 

5.  One  other  fact  suggested  by  this  ancient 
model  of  a  revival  is,  that  often  such  awakenings 
are  followed  hy  jyeriods  of  temporal  'prosperity. 
"  The  Lord  gave  them  rest  round  about."  In 
that  semi-civilized  age  the  symbol  of  all  temporal 
calamities  was  a  state  of  chronic  war,  and  the 
symbol  of  all  temporal  blessings  was  a  state  of 
peace.  Rest  from  civil  and  foreign  discord  meant 
the  prosperity  of  the  arts  of  peace.  The  encour- 
agement of  industry,  the  increase  of  property,  the 
unity  of  families,  the  preservation  of  young  life, 
the  growth  of  the  able-bodied  population,  the  in- 
crease of  the  comforts  of  civilization,  and  the 
advance  of  the  general  culture,  all  attended  long- 
continued  peace.  This  was  the  blessing  which 
God  gave  as  a  sequence  of  the  quickening  of  the 
national  conscience. 

Not  always  do  all  forms  of  temporal  blessing 
attend  repentance  and  holy  living.  But  such  is 
the  tendency  of  a  godly  life.  The  promises  of 
God  have  never  yet  been  tested  by  the  spiritual 
conversion  of  an  entire  nation.  That  test  the 
Christian  religion  is  to  receive  in  the  golden  age 
which  prophecy  promises  to  the  Church.  The  ces- 
sation of  war  and  intemperance  alone  would  double 
the  property  of  the  globe  in  a  single  generation. 


64  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^\JMENT. 

All  that  facts  bear  witness  to  at  present  is  that 
the  drift  of  religious  living  is  to  better  a  man's 
worldly  condition.  Many  a  country  village  has 
been  improved  in  its  physical  condition  —  in  the 
comfort  of  families ;  in  the  lessening  of  poverty ; 
in  the  peace  of  neighborhoods ;  in  the  charitable- 
ness of  conversation ;  in  the  obedience  of  children  ; 
in  the  fidelity  of  parents;  in  the  refinement  of 
amusements ;  in  the  adornment  of  streets  ;  in  the 
beautifying  of  cemeteries;  in  aspirations  toward 
literatui-e,  art,  and  general  culture — 'Ijy  a  thor- 
ough renovation  of  its  society  througli  a  powerful 
revival  of  religion.  No  other  civilizing  power 
equals  that  of  pure  religion.  It  never  hurts  a 
man,  for  any  of  the  right  uses  of  this  world,  to 
make  a  Chi-istian  of  him. 


CHRISTIAN  ALLIANCES  WITH  WICKED  MEN. 

And  Jehu  the  son  of  Hanani  the  seer  .  .  .  said  to  king  Je- 
hoshaphat,  Sliouldest  thou  help  the  ungodly,  and  love  them  that 
hate  the  Lord?  —  2  CiriiON.  xix.  2. 

IT  is  \yoiiderful  at  how  many  points  the  biogra- 
pliies   of    the    Old   Testament  touch  modern 
life. 

"Shouldest  thou  help  the  ungodly,  and  love 
them  that  hate  the  Lord  ?  "  Such  is  the  reproof 
addressed  by  the  prophet  to  the  king  of  Judah. 
Jehoshaphat  seems  to  have  been  a  good  sort  of 
man,  as  the  world  goes,  —  better  than  the  average 
of  his  age.  '*  Good  things  are  found  in  thee," 
is  the  kindly  judgment  of  the  prophet  about  him. 
But  he  was  an  ambitious  man.  He  wanted  to 
stand  well  with  the  world.  He  aspired  to  the 
glory  of  a  splendid  reign.  To  promote  Ms  politi- 
cal aspirations,  he  sought  alliance  with  one  of  the 
most  impious  princes  of  the  time,  and  an  apostate 
from  the  true  religion.  As  the  monarch  of  a  theo- 
cratic government  he  could  hardly  have  done  a 
worse  tiling. 

Jehoshaphat  was  a  representative  man,  —  repre- 
sentative of  a  large  class  of  good  men  in  every 

55 


56  STUDIES  OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

age,  who  for  selfish  ends  choose  their  friends  from 
among  the  irreligious  and  the  worldly. 

1.  The  friendship  of  wicked  men  is  one  of  the 
most  dangerous  social  temptations  to  ivhich  Chris- 
tians are  subjected.  Modern  life  in  cities  illustrates 
it  with  special  force. 

The  wealth  of  the  world  is  very  largely  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  are  not  the  friends  of  Christ. 
Wealth  is  a  great  power.  It  commands  respect. 
Honestly  gained  and  properly  used,  it  deserves 
respect.  It  is  not  necessarily  a  sin  t<3  desue  the 
friendship  of  the  rich. 

In  many  communities  intelligence  and  eidture 
also  are  possessed  mainly  by  the  irreligious.  Re- 
ligion often  thrives  best  amongst  the  poor  and  the 
illiterate. 

"  Not  many  rich  or  noble  called, 
Not  many  ijreat  or  wise : 
They  whom  God  makes  his  kings  and  priests 
Are  poor  in  human  eyes." 

The)'  who  heard  Christ  gladly  were  the  com- 
mon people.  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers  believed  on 
him  ?  "  His  chosen  apostles  were  humble  trades- 
men and  fisher-folk. 

Irreligious  men  are  often  very  bright  men. 
They  are  brilliant  conversers,  ready  wits,  racy  in 
thought  and  speech.  Even  profane  men  are  forci- 
ble talkers.  The  society  of  such  men  is  often  fas- 
cinating. Fun,  repartees,  humorous  anecdote, 
though  not  forbidden  by  the  Christian  religion,  it 


CHRISTLAN   ALLIANCES   WITH   WICKED   MEN.   57 

must  be  conceded,  are  not  its  strong  points.  Irre- 
ligion  often  seems  to  have  a  monopoly  of  them. 
The  joy  of  a  godly  life  does  not  depend  largely 
on  the  risible  faculties.  The  young,  therefore, 
often  find  powerful  allurement  to  irreligious  friend- 
ships in  the  social  brilliancy  of  those  who  are 
living  without  God. 

The  interests  of  business  sometimes  create  a 
similar  peril.  Two  men  once  took  the  lease  of  a 
hotel.  One  was  a  professing  Christian,  the  other 
not.  The  enterprise  threatened  to  bankrupt  them 
both.  Nothing  could  save  them  but  the  secret 
and  illegal  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks.  The  Chris- 
tian partner's  faith  was  not  strong  enough  to  with- 
stand the  resolute  selfishness  of  the  other. 

In  a  higher  circle  of  life  professional  success 
often  tempts  a  3'oung  man  of  aspiring  mind  to 
seek  to  ally  himself  with  those  who  love  not  God, 
and  care  notliing  for  his  cause.  Many  years  ago 
a  young  law^^er,  who  afterwards  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States,  was  a  member  of  an  obscure  church  in  the 
mountains  of  New  England.  So  long  as  he  re- 
mained nestled  among  the  liills,  he  was  faithful  to 
the  religion  of  his  fathers.  But  his  professional 
prospects  required  him  to  migrate  to  the  metropo- 
lis. There  he  found  himself  in  a  new  world. 
The  faith  of  his  childliood  was  unpopular.  Very 
largely  it  was  the  faith  of  the  poor  and  the  middling 
classes  of  society.     The  wealth,  the  culture,  the 


58  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTA.AfEXT. 

social  rank,  the  professional  prestic^e,  of  the  com- 
munity, were  compacted  iu  almost  solid  phalanx 
against  it.  Prejudice  against' it  ran  so  high,  that 
the  churches  in  which  it  was  preached  were 
branded  with  opprobrious  nicknames.  Their  wor- 
shippers were  hustled  in  the  street. 

It  was  a  severe  temptation  to  the  3'outhrul  and 
])rilliant  lawyer,  who  may  have  felt  that  he  had 
the  making  of  a  great  statesman  in  his  brain. 
The  necessities  of  his  professional  future — yes, 
of  his  professional  usefulness  —  seemed  to  compel 
him  to  abandon  the  old  faith  of  the  Pilgrim.;,  and 
to  seek  association  with  the  magnates  of  the  bar 
and  bench  by  casting  in  his  lot  \vith  those  who 
denied  Christ,  llf  fell  before  the  temptation. 
From  that  time  to  liis  death,  his  religious  faith, 
though  probably  not  theoretically  changed,  was 
clouded  over,  and  practically  buried  under  his 
professional  alliances. 

This  form  of  trial  is  often  not  only  severe,  Init 
insidious.  The  wiles  of  a  crafty  adversary  seldom 
create  one  more  plausible  and  alluring.  There 
seems  to  be  no  escape  from  it,  and  often  nothing 
fatal  in  it.  Men  find  themselves  confronted  by  a 
compact  and  insurmountable  wall  of  circumstance, 
which  shuts  them  in  and  hedges  them  around. 
As  they  see  things,  no  course  is  left  to  them,  but 
to  choose  their  friends  fi'om  the  secret  or  avowed 
enemies  to  the  cross  of  Christ.  Said  an  excellent 
Chiistian  lady  not  long  ago,  "Almost  my  entire 


CnRISTIAN   ALLLVNCES   "WITH   WICKED   IMEN.   59 

circle  of  friends  is  made  up  of  those  who  liave  no 
sympathy  with  my  religion.  In  the  city  where  I 
live,  there  are  no  others  with  whom  I  can  associate 
on  terms  of  social  equality." 

2.  Of  this  trial  of  Christian  principle,  it  should 
be  further  said,  that  the  Christian  religion  requires 
no  narroiv  or  ascetic  seclusion  from  the  world.  "  I 
pray  not  that  thou  shouldest  take  them  out  of  the 
world,  but  that  thou  shouldest  keep  them  from 
the  evil."  Such  was  the  sensible  prayer  of  our 
Lord  for  his  disciples.  No  fanaticism  here.  It  is 
our  cliic-f  discipline  for  a  better  world,  to  learn  to 
live  as  a  good,  man  should  in  this  world. 

A  crystal  is  sometimes  formed  in  the  embrace 
of  a  bowlder  of  granite.  To  clear  it  of  its  rough 
enclosure,  and  to  bring  its  beautiful  facets  to  the 
light,  Nature  submerges  it  in  deep  waters,  shatters 
it  by  tempests,  and  abrades  it  by  contact  with 
stones  and  mud,  and  the  rubl)ish  of  the  sea.  Thus 
a  redeemed  soul  is  by  the  plan  of  God  immersed 
in  the  cares  and  toils  and  enticements  and  useful- 
ness of  a  world  of  sin,  so  that  by  sheer  resistance 
to  evil,  and  abrasion  with  depravity,  it  may  be 
jiolished  to  the  transparent  image  of  Him  who 
made  it. 

The  thing  which  Cliristian  principle  forbids  is 
the  seeking  of  worldly  friendships  and  alliances 
for  selfish  ends,  and  to  the  peril  of  religious  use- 
fulness and  religious  character.  Every  Christian's 
good  sense  discerns  the  distinction,  and  acknowl- 
edges its  reasonableness. 


60  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAiVIENT. 

3.  Yet  tlie  irreligious  friendships  of  religious 
meu  violate  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  Scriptures.  A 
deliberate  invitation  of  this  form  of  temptation  is 
close  akin  to  apostasy.  Gloss  it  over  as  we  may, 
—  and  very  ingenious  and  winsome  are  the  dis- 
guises by  which  a  deceived  conscience  can  adorn 
it,  —  gloss  it  over  as  we  please,  it  is  a  policy  of 
life  which  i<tarts  wrong.  Therefore  it  threatens 
catastrophe  in  the  end. 

The  Scriptures  recognize  but  two  grades  of 
caste  in  this  world,  —  the  good  and  tlie  bad ;  the 
righteous  and  the  wicked;  the  friends  of  God  and 
the  enemies  of  God.  In  the  incisive  language  of 
the  New  Testament,  men  are  all  either  saints  or 
sinners.  In  the  worhl,  not  of  the  world;  come  ye 
out  from  among  them;  Ijc  ye  separate;  a  royal 
priesthood ;  a  peculiar  people ;  strangers  and  pil- 
grims on  earth,  —  such  are  tlie  mottoes  by  which 
inspired  wisdom  indicates  the  followers  of  Christ. 
The  very  being  of  the  Cliurch  is  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  alive  and  fresh  in  human  thouglit  that 
old  distinction  between  saint  and  sinner.  Between 
the  two  the  great  gulf  is  fixed.  They  drift  asun- 
der in  tliis  world,  as  they  are  to  be  kept  asunder 
in  the  next  world. 

!Now,  a  Christian  who  subjects  his  Christian 
faith  to  worldly  policy  in  the  choice  of  his  asso- 
ciates in  life  strikes  right  athwart  the  whole  range 
of  scriptural  command  and  admonition  and  expos- 
tulation and  example.  No  Chi-istian  ciin  safely 
do  that. 


CHRISTIAN  AU.IANCES   WITH   WICKED   MEN.   61 

The  statesman  to  whom  I  have  referred,  with 
all  his  brilliant  ingennit}',  did  not  escape  the 
apparent  wrecking  of  liis  religious  faith  on  tliis 
rock.  From  the  hour  m  wliich  he  deliberately 
al)andoned  the  religious  connections  of  his  youth, 
the  spiiituality  of  his  religious  character  declined. 
He  was  never  afterwards  known  to  the  world  as 
even  a  professing  Christian.  Though  nominally 
such,  he  mingled  with  men  for  years,  and  they 
never  knew  it.  He  was  practically  a  man  of  the 
world,  a  lover  of  the  world,  an  honored  leader 
of  the  world,  worthy  of  all  the  dignities  he  re- 
ceived, and  more,  but  an  alien  from  the  people  of 
God.  He  lost  his  reverence  for  the  Christian 
sabbath.  He  forsook,  for  long  intervals,  the 
Lord's  table.  Even  to  the  laws  of  Christian 
morality  he  became  treacherous.  His  veracity,  liis 
honesty,  his  temperance,  Ms  chastity,  all  were 
submerged  in  his  intense  and  overmastering  world- 
liness  before  he  died. 

Though,  at  the  last,  a  few  not  very  positive 
words  on  his  death-bed  left  his  Christian  fiiends 
not  utterly  without  hope  that  he  died  a  penitent 
believer,  yet  his  public  career  of  more  than  forty 
years  belied  the  hope.  For  the  great  distinctive 
ends  of  Christian  living  and  usefulness,  his  life 
was  a  failure.  It  ended  a  blackened  ruin  of  that 
which  had  a  splendid  beginning,  and  gave  magnifi- 
cent promise  for  the  future. 

4.  This  suggests  that  entangling  alliances  with 


62  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

the  world  often  involve  an  immense  sacrifice  of 
Christian  usefdyiess. 

A  man  cannot  be  greatly  useful  as  a  Christian 
without  great  positiveness  of  religious  character. 
It  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  our  religion,  that  a 
man  must  believe  it  with  his  whole  soul.  He 
must  give  his  whole  being  to  it.  In  a  divided 
heart  it  cannot  live.  One  who  tries  the  experi- 
ment pulls  down  with  one  hand  what  he  builds 
up  with  the  other.  He  drenches  every  sacred  fire 
he  kindles.  He  does  not  win  the  worfd  to  Christ. 
The  world  wins  him. 

Such  a  man  is  commonly  a  dead  weight  in  the 
Church.  If  not  that,  he  owes  what  good  influence 
he  has  to  other  tilings  than  his  religion.  A 
spiritual  power  in  the  Church  he  is  not,  and  cannot 
be.  He  never  heads  a  forlorn  hope  on  God's  side 
of  things.  If  he  is  even  a  silent  looker-on  in  the 
conflict,  and  not  an  active  opponent  of  the  more 
spiritual  developments  of  Christ's  kingdom,  that 
is  the  best  that  can  be  hoped  for  from  liim. 

Such  men  are  very  apt  to  be  opposers  of  re- 
vivals. In  great  awakenings  they  are  ultra  con- 
servatives. Their  instinct  is  to  carp  at  or  ignore 
such  movements.  The  enemy  of  souls  often  finds 
in  a  group  of  such  men  his  most  efiicient  auxil- 
iary. When  at  last  death  surprises  them  into  a 
more  truthful  view  of  things,  they  often  die  mourn- 
ing over  a  wasted  and  perverted  life. 

An  old  English  pi*overb  says,  "  He  must  have  a 


CHRISTIAN   ALLIANCES   WITH   WICKED   MEN.   63 

long  spoon  who  would  sup  with  the  Devil."  The 
saddest  feature  in  the  career  of  such  men  is  that 
Satan  most  disastrously  outwits  them.  They  do 
not  build  as  they  think  to  build.  They  are  be- 
guiled, hoodwinked,  led  blindfold,  to  the  loss  of 
all  that  a  child  of  God  should  hold  most  dear. 
They  are  Samsons:  mighty,  it  may  be,  in  re- 
sources of  worldly  prowess;  great  against  foxes, 
lions,  bears ;  but  weaker  than  an  infant  in  the  lap 
of:  Delilah,  and  blind  captives  iu  the  prison-house 
of  Philistines. 

5.  Christian  alliances  with  the  wicked  do  not 
command  the  respect  of  the  very  men  for  whose  favor 
they  are  formed.  Men  of  the  world  are  very  keen 
in  their  judgments  of  Christian  character.  They 
know  what  is  consistent  Christian  living,  when 
they  see  it,  as  well  as  we  do.  Indeed,  their  theo- 
retic ideal  of  a  Cliristian  life  is  commonly  more 
exalted  than  that  of  men  who  are  struggling  to 
realize  it.  No  other  class  of  men  are  so  prompt  to 
tell  us  what  they  would  do  if  they  believed  as  we 
do,  as  those  who  believe  nothing.  ^  An  upright  and 
downright  Christian  they  always  revere.  In  heart 
they  make  obeisance  to  him  as  to  no  other  type  of 
man.  Do  you  not  know  a  godless  man  who  professes 
to  have  lost  all  faith  in  religion,  but  who  makes 
exception  of  some  one  humble  Christian  woman,  — 
his  mother  perhaps,  or  si*>ter,  or  wife  ?  "  If  ever 
human  being  gets  to  heaven,  she  will,"  is  his  tes- 
timony. That  one  life  keeps  open  to  his  faith  the 
celestial  gates. 


64  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTiVMENT. 

Said  Walter  Scott,  on  one  occasion,  to  his  daugh- 
ter, —  substantially,  I  quote  from  memory,  —  "I 
know  this  world ;  I  have  read  many  books ;  ,1  have 
known  many  splendidly  educated  men  in  my  time ; 
but  I  declare  to  you  that  I  have  heard  more  lofty 
and  noble  sentiments  from  the  lips  of  poor,  unedu- 
cated men  and  women  in  times  of  trouble,  than  I 
ever  met  with  elsewhere  outside  of  the  pages  of 
the  Bible."  Yes,  the  world  reveres  the  honest 
principles  of  our  religion  in  plain,  honest  lives. 

By  the  same  instinctive  insight  intb  facts,  they 
recoil  with  contempt  when  they  encounter  men  or 
women  who  sacrifice  those  principles  to  worldly 
policy  or  social  ambitions.  They  never  at  heart 
trust  such  a  man.  They  may  use  liiin  as  they  do 
other  tools;  but  they  never  love  him  in  return, 
because  they  cannot  trust  him. 

In  religion,  as  in  other  things,  few  things 
command  the  respect  of  the  world  like  courage. 
Fidelity  to  honest  convictions,  conformity  of  heart 
to  the  faith  of  the  head,  the  struggle  at  least  to 
make  the  heart  tally  with  the  profession,  the  world 
bows  reverently  to  these  tilings  always.  Men  will 
bear  to  be  browbeaten  by  an  act  of  religious  fidel- 
ity better  than  to  be  fawned  upon.  They  tolerate 
a  fanatic  sooner  than  a  traitor.  We  all  respect 
a  pugilist  more  than  we  do  a  coward.  A  profess- 
iner  Chi-istian  never  makes  a  meaner  blunder  than 
when  he  thinks  to  flatter  wicked  men,  and  win 
their  good-will,  by  trampling  on  his  deepest  con 
victions,  or  ignoring  his  most  solemn  vows. 


CHEISTIAN   ALLIANCES   WITH   WICKED   MEN.   65 

6.  Loving  those  that  hate  God  inflicts  a  wound 
of  great  severity  on  the  feelings  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
CJirist.  When  a  young  man  is  choosing  his  life's 
companions,  Christ  is  looking  on.  When  a  3^oung 
woman  is  wavering  between  the  Church  of  Christ 
and  the  world,  in  her  choice  of  the  dearest  friend 
she  is  ever  to  know,  Christ  is  watching  the  trem- 
bling scales. 

Every  professed  follower  of  his,  Christ  regards 
as  his  personal  friend.  He  loves  liim  as  if  he  were 
the  only  friend  left  him.  Picture  his  look  on  the 
scared  Peter.  Tliink  of  him  in  Gethsemane  say- 
ing, "  Could  ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour?" 
See  him  on  the  cross,  turning  his  languid  eyes  in 
sfearch  of  liis  hiding  disciples.  Every  one  who 
bears  his  name,  he  remembered  and  thought  of 
in  that  supreme  hour. 

To-day  he  longs  for  your  friendship,  my  brother, 
as  if  there  were  no  other  one  in  the  universe  to 
share  the  gift  of  his  life's  blood.  He  would  have 
died  for  you  alone,  as  readily  as  for  countless  mil- 
lions. Hear  him  :  "•  I  was  hungr}-,  and  ye  gave 
me  no  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  no 
di'ink  ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  took  me  not  in."  Deeds 
of  common  human  kindness,  such  as  we  lavish  on 
a  stranger,  he  longed  for.  He  longs  for  them  now. 
From  you,  from  me,  from  each  one  whom  he  died 
for,  he  craves  the  human  love  which  is  so  precious 
to  us  all.     Love  is  hurt  if  it  is  not  loved  in  return. 

What,  then,  must  his  feelings  be  when  he  sees 


66  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST-t\JMENT. 

one  who  has  been  his  friend,  turning  cold]}'-  from 
him,  and  choosing  in  his  place  the  friendship  of 
the  world  wliich  crucified  him,  and  which  would 
crucify  him  again  ?  My  brother,  it  is  not  so  much 
that  you  are  losing  Clirist,  as  that  Clu'ist  is  losing 
you.  It  is  from  Calvary  that  the  voice  comes  now 
to  each  one  of  us  in  our  solitude  :  "  Shouldest  thou 
love  them  that  hate  the  Lord  ?  " 


HONORING  GOD'S   HOUSE. 

And  it  came  to  pass  after  tlus,  that  Joaah  was  minded  to 
repair  the  house  of  the  L<ird.  .  .  .  And  he  gathered  together  the 
priests  and  the  Le\ntes,  and  said  to  them,  Go  out  unto  the  cities 
of  Jinlali,  and  gather  of  all  Israel  money  to  repair  the  house  of 
your  God  from  year  to  year,  and  see  that  ye  hasten  the  matter. 
...  So  the  workmen  wrought,  and  the  work  was  perfected  by 
them,  and  they  ^et  the  house  of  God  in  his  state,  and  strength- 
ened it.  —  2  Chkon.  xxiv.  4,  5,  13. 

IT  is  popular  in  our  day  to  decry  as  superstition 
that  devout  instinct  which  reveres  a  Christian 
temple  as  God's  peculiar  dwelling-place.  Cold- 
blooded men  say,  "  It  is  no  more  than  any  other 
mass  of  bricks  and  mortar."  Poetry,  too,  has 
much  to  say  of  worshipi)ing  God  in  fields  and 
forests  and  mountains  and  valleys,  and  on  the  sea. 
A  good  deal  of  watery  sentiment  has  been  ex- 
pended by  sabbath-breakers  on  "  Nature's  first 
temple." 

The  undoubted  truth  of  God's  omnipresence  is 
about  all  the  truth  there  is  underneath  this  popular 
twaddle.  Let  us  see,  then,  what  reason  we  have 
for  regarding  a  place  of  Christian  worship  with 
peculiar  reverence. 

1.   The  biblical  history  of  the  idea  of  a  place  where 

67 


68  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

God  is  worshipped  represents  it  as  .one  of  peculiar 
and  awful  sanctity/.  The  developiueut  of  the  con- 
ception of  "  the  Lord's  house  "  in  the  Scriptures 
is  deeply  interesting.  Tlie  most  ancient  hint  of  it 
in  any  known  literature  is  found  in  the  Book  of 
Job.  "•  Natui-e's  first  temple  "  was  as  magnificent 
then  as  now;  yet  the  afflicted  patriarch  laments, 
"Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  Ilim,  that  I 
might  come  even  to  his  seat!''  lie  lungs  to  fix 
upon  some  spot  where  he  can  find  God, — ■AOina  place 
where  the  awful  distance  between  him  and  God 
shall  be  lessened.  Just  because  God  is  every- 
where, he  seems,  to  himself,  to  find  him  nowhere. 

This  is  human  nature.  Call  it  infirmity  if  you 
will:  still  it  is  human  nature.  The  intuitions  of 
the  race  have  acknowledged  it.  Groves,  moun- 
tains, grottoes,  caves,  streams,  valle3's,  plains,  lakes, 
as  well  as  altars  and  temples,  have  been  conse- 
crated as  the  abodes  of  gods.  As  we  instinctively 
clothe  our  conception  of  God  in  human  form,  and 
seem  to  hear  his  voice,  di-ead  his  eye,  see  his  hand, 
hear  his  footfall,  so  we  intuitively  assign  to  him 
some  place  which  we  approach  with  awe.  Is  this 
all  falsehood?  It  is  not  like  God  to  make  the 
soul  of  man  a  liar  in  its  very  nature. 

"  Nature's  first  temple  "  was  as  grand  and  impos- 
ing in  Abraham's  day  as  now :  yet  he  went  three- 
days'  journey  with  his  costly  sacrifice  to  Mount 
Moriah ;  and  there,  in  a  definite  and  becoming 
placey  he  found  and  woi-shipped  God.     Isaac  was 


HONORING   god's   HOUSE.  69 

fond  of  walking  in  the  fields  at  eventide ;  but  he 
built  an  altar  at  Beersheba,  because  God  there 
appeared  to  him,  and  blessed  him.  The  heavens 
were  resplendent  with  the  constellations  of  a 
Syrian  sky  when  Jacob  spent  a  night  in  the  open 
plain.  The  ground  was  his  couch,  and  a  stone 
was  his  pillow.  But  he  discovered  before  morning 
that  God  was  there ;  and  he  called  the  place  Beth- 
el, and  said,  "-How  dreadful  is  this  place!  This 
is  none  other  than  the  house  of  God ;  and  this  is 
the  gate  of  heaven."  Again  he  spends  a  solitary 
night  under  the  open  sky,  and  his  dreams  are 
troubled.  He  seems  to  be  struggling  with  an 
august  and  mysterious  stranger  till  the  daybreak. 
And  he  calls  that  place  "  Peniel ; "  for,  says  he, 
*'  I  have  seen  God  face  to  face." 

Moses  is  keeping  flocks  near  jNIount  Horeb,  and 
a  bush  on  fire  turns  liim  aside.  He  thinks  it  "a 
great  sight,"  for  he  discovers  that  God  is  there. 
He  hears  a  voice  saying,  "  Draw  not  nigh  hither : 
put  off  thy  shoes  fi'om  off  thy  feet,  for  the  place 
whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground."  Again, 
when  Moses  leads  the  people  out  of  Egypt,  not 
every  man's  tent  is  God's  dwelling,  but  a  pillar  of 
cloud  and  of  fire  leads  the  march,  and  God  is  in 
the  pillar.  Arrived  at  Sinai,  amidst  thunder  and 
lightning  and  tempest  and  fire,  and  "  a  voice  of 
words,"  God  is  found  high  up  in  the  mountain 
and  the  cloud.  Moses  goes  up  into  the  thick 
darkness  where   God   is.     There   he  receives  the 


70  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

pattern  of  the  tabernacle,  and  that  becomes  for 
generations  the  peculiar  mercy-seat  of  God.  The 
people  fear  exceedingly,  and  tremble,  and  cry  out, 
"  Let  not  God  speak  with  us,  lest  we  die  !  " 

At  length  the  kingdom  of  Judah  reaches  its 
golden  age ;  and  the  temple  rises  in  far-famed 
splendor.  God  says  of  it,  "  I  have  hallowed  this 
place,  to  put  my  name  there  forever."  The  tem- 
ple of  Solomon  was  the  original  ideal  of  a  hoiLse 
of  God,  realized  in  architecture  unrivalled  in  tliat 
age.  A  whole  nation  poured  out  its 'treasures  in 
the  building.  The  wisest  of  monarchs  tasked 
the  skill  c»f  the  most  ingenious  artificers,  and  the 
genius  of  the  most  accomplished  architects  of  the 
times.  It  was  the  Jewish  St.  I'eter's.  Ophir  sent 
its  pure  gohl,  and  Lebanon  its  magnificent  cedars. 
Jerusalem  and  Tyre  united  their  navies  as  trans- 
port  ships.  "  The  house  of  God  "  must  be  made 
"  exceeding  magnifical,  of  fame  and  glor}'  through- 
out all  countries."  So  hallowed  was  the  place, 
and  so  sacred  the  work,  that  it  must  proceed  in 
hushed  stillness.  Because  God  was  to  dwell  there, 
"neither  hammer  nor  axe,  nor  any  tool  of  iron," 
must  be  "licard  in  the  liouse  while  it  was  in  build- 
ing."    It  must  grow  in  silence,  as  forests  gi'ow. 

"  No  workman's  steel  nor  ponderous  axes  rung: 
Like  some  UiU  palm  the  noiseless  fabric  sprung." 

Wlien  finished  it  was  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.     The  reporters  of  the  age  could  not  tell 


HONORING   god's   HOUSE.  71 

the  half  of  it.  Sliebu's  queen  was  abashed  as  she 
approached  it,  and  ''  there  was  no  more  spirit  in 
her." 

Such  is  the  biblical  conception  of  the  sacreduess 
of  the  house  of  God.  "  The  holy  place  ;  the  holy 
hill;  the  place  where  mine  honor  dwellelh;  tho 
gate  of  heaven : "  so  the  Bible  describes  iu  brief 
its  unutterable  sanctity. 

2.  The  Bible  represents  the  building  and  repairing 
of  the  LortFs  hou^e  as  acts  of  eminent  pietg.  The 
historian  saj's  of  Joash  in  the  context,  that  he 
was  a  godly  man  as  long  as  he  had  the  guidance 
of  the  celebrated  priest  Jehoiada.  Yet  the  only 
thing  thought  worthy  of  mention  in  that  i)art  of 
liis  reign  is,  that  '*  he  was  minded  to  repair  the 
house  of  the  Lord." 

It  was  counted  an  act  of  signid  devotion  in 
David,  that  he  was  minded  "  to  build  the  house 
of  the  Lord."  Only  the  awful  sacredness  of  the 
work  forbade  David's  doing  it,  because  he  had 
been  a  man  of  war.  It  was  incongruous  with  the 
divine  idea,  that  a  military  chief,  who  had  shed 
much  blood,  should  set  his  hand  to  a  work  so  holy. 
The  dignity  of  a  great  civilian,  and  the  most  highly 
cultiued  monarch  of  the  age,  was  better  suited  to 
its  hallowed  pui-pose.  Of  Solomon's  long  and 
splendid  reign,  the  erection  of  the  temple  was  the 
crowning  deed,  renowned  alike  as  a  token  of  his 
wisdom  and  his  piety.  The  chief  object  of  one 
entii'e  book  of  the  Bible  —  the  Book  of  Xehemiah 
—  is  to  record  the  building  of  the  second  temple. 


72  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

Passing  on  to  later  times,  the  most  sigiiilicaut 
token  of  the  divine  idea  of  the  temple  where  God 
dwelt  is  found  in  tlic  fact  that  our  Lord  accepted 
it  as  the  symbol  of  liis  own  sacred  body.  ""He 
sj)ake  of  the  temple  of  his  body."  His  resurrec- 
tion, the  crowning  event  of  his  sinless  life,  was  a 
rebuilding  of  a  temple.  When  the  apostles  also 
would  express  to  Christian  believers  the  most  ex- 
alted eoneeption  of  their  consecrated  character  in 
God's  sight,  the  form  of  the  admonition  is,  "Ye 
arc  the  temple  of  God.  "Whoso  delilttth  the  tem- 
ple of  God,  liim  shall  God  destroy." 

3.  Jn  perfect  keeping  with  the  biblical  idea  on 
this  sul)ject,  it  is  the  iiuftinct  of  a  devout  heart,  every- 
whcrr  ittitl  alwaifK,  to  revere  the  house  in  which  God 
is  j)ul>lirlii  worshipped.  Like  every  other  vital 
prineii)le  of  religion,  it  may  degenerate  into  super- 
stition. Hut  it  is  natiu-al  to  the  spirit  of  worship. 
Catholic  Christians  are  right  in  their  reverent 
regard  for  their  churches  and  utensils  of  service. 
If  Protestant  Christians  have  lost  the  ancient  spirit 
of  the  Church  in  this  respect,  they  are  none  the 
better  for  it. 

An  incident  occurred  in  ]>oston  not  long  ago, 
which  made  me  wish  that  all  our  churches  were 
open  for  daily  and  hourly  individual  worship.  A 
poor  emigrant-woman,  \Wth  her  helpless  children, 
apparently  just  from  the  ship  in  which  they  had 
come  to  a  strange  land,  saw  a  Protestant  church, 
on  the  spire  of  which  was  the  familiar  cross.     She 


HONoraxG  god's  house.  73 

thought  it  a  temple  of  her  own  fjiith.  But,  as  its 
doors  were  closed,  she  could  not  enter ;  and  she 
devoutly  knelt  with  her  children  on  the  pavement, 
and  offered  silent  prayer.  She  was  a  stranger  in  a 
strange  land.  Strange  faces  and  sounds  which  she 
could  not  understand  were  all  around  her ;  but 
there  was  one  thhig  wliich  was  familiar  and  dear 
to  her,  —  the  cross,  emblematic  of  our  connuon 
Redeemer.  She  could  understand  that.  I  seemed 
to  hear  her  voice  as  her  heart  flowed  out  in  grate- 
ful prayer  for  herself  and  children  in  the  new  life 
which  they  were  beginning,  or  in  thanksgiving  for 
their  safety  from  the  perils  of  the  sea.  Was  that 
superstition?     I  could  not  call  it  so. 

I  once  sat  in  the  shadow  of  one  of  the  arches 
of  the  Colosseum  at  Rome,  in  the  autunmal  moon- 
light, and  alone.  That  ruin  has  long  since  been 
consecrated  as  a  place  of  Christian  worship.  A 
cross  stands  in  the  centre,  art)und  wliich  a  crowd 
of  worshippers  is  often  gathered  on  a  Friday,  lis- 
tening to  very  eai'nest,  and  by  no  means  unchris- 
tian, preaching.  As  I  sat  tlicre  trying  to  picture 
the  scenes  of  the  early  martyrdoms  which  had  oc- 
curred there,  when  Christian  captives  were  thrown 
to  wild  beasts  amidst  the  ferocious  plaudits  of  a 
hundred  thousand  spectators  in  the  galleries  above, 
a  solitary  peasant  came  through ;  and  bending 
under  his  burden  of  fagots,  and  unconscious  that 
any  human  eye  was  looking  on,  he  knelt  and  of- 
fered silent  prayer  before  the  cross.     The  cross 


74  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

was  nothing  to  my  Puritan  iconoclasm ;  and  the 
promise  on  tlie  phicard  appended  to  it,  of  deliver- 
ance from  I  do  not  know  how  much  time  in  pur- 
gatory to  any  one  who  shall  imprint  a  kiss  there, 
saddened  me.  But  I  c(»uld  not  jutlge  by  my  se- 
verer faitli  the  impulsive  devotion  of  the  poor 
Italian.  I  wanted  to  grasp  his  hand  as  that  of  a 
Christian  brother.  He  was  expressing  in  his  way 
the  same  instinct  of  religious  reverence  which  I 
felt  in  looking  upon  the  spot  whore  thousands  of 
(^liristian  martyrs  had  scaled  their  l>lte  in  Idood. 
Who  shall  judge  between  us,  and  say  that  my  mood 
was  religion,  and  his  superstition? 

It  may  have  been  an  extreme  of  this  instinct 
which  led  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  to  lift  his  hat  rev- 
erently whenever  he  passed  a  churcli  in  the  streets 
of  London ;  but  better  that  than  the  covered  head 
and  the  laugli  and  the  jest  often  seen  and  heard  in 
our  churches.  That  is  a  becoming,  because  a  per- 
fectly sensible,  act  of  reverence,  in  which  worshij)- 
pers  of  the  Church  of  England  bow  the  head  in 
silent  prayer  at  the  beginning  of  public  religious 
service.  Our  plainer  forms  of  worship  would  be 
improved  by  the  usage. 

4.  The  associations  of  the  Lord's  house  are  an 
itwalculable  help  to  the  culture  of  religious  character. 
We  are  creatures  of  association.  We  are  often 
movetl  more  profoundly  than  we  think  by  our 
surroimdings.  The  recollection  of  our  experiences 
in   the   house   of  God   may  be  among  the  most 


HONORINQ  god's  HOUSE.  75 

precious  treasiu-es  that  memory  hoards.  The 
prayers  we  have  heard  there  ;  the  ohl  hymns  of  the 
lathers,  some  of  them  redolent  with  the  incense 
of  a  thousand  years ;  the  senuons  wliieh  have 
moved  us  ;  the  Scriptures  read  and  expounded ; 
certain  texts  which  were  new  to  us  and  most 
timely ;  the  light  of  the  setting  sun  streaming  in 
at  western  windows  when  it  seemed  like  the  glory 
of  God's  countenance;  tlie  seat  whore  the  mother 
sat  holding  fast  our  childish  hand,  or  the  corner 
from  which  the  father  turned  his  loving  eye  upon 
us  in  mikl  reproof ;  the  pews  from  which  sainted 
men  and  women  have  gone  to  their  rest,  —  oh, 
there  are  holy  forces  in  such  reminiscences  !  They 
are  "golden  vials  full  of  odors."  They  come  back 
to  us  in  after-years,  "trailing  clouds  of  glory." 
They  make  the  very  walls  of  the  house  of  God 
eloquent.  The  stone  cries  out  of  the  wall,  and 
the  beam  out  of  the  timber  answers  it.  The  very 
silence  of  the  place  on  a  week-day  is  more  potent 
than  angels'  voices.  O  thou  homely  "meeting- 
house  "  of  my  youth,  God  bless  thee  !  If  I  forget 
thee,  let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning;  if  I 
do  not  rememl)er  thee,  let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the 
roof  of  my  mouth ! 

An  eminent  statesman  of  our  country,  whose 
funeral  was  attended  by  reverent  thousands,  once 
boasted  flippantly  that  he  "  had  not  seen  the  inside 
of  a  church  in  twelve  years."  Well,  he  had  sought 
other  tilings,  and  he   had  liis  reward.      But  his 


76  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJNIENT. 

cliiiracter,  through  his  long  public  career,  showed 
the  want  of  just  those  qualities  which  devout  at- 
tendance on  the  serWces  of  religion  would  have 
tended  to  develop.  He  was  irreverent,  unchar- 
itahle,  selfish,  intenij)erate  in  speech,  one-sided  in 
policy,  a  man  of  few  friends,  whom  all  men  feared 
but  few  could  love.  And,  so  far  as  men  could  see, 
—  God  knows  how  truthfully,  —  he  died  as  the 
fool  dicth.  Not  one  word  of  Christian  consolation 
relieved  his  last  agonies.  lie  uttered  not  one 
word  which  could  indicate  whether  ke  believed  in 
God  or  not,  whether  he  had  a  soul  or  not,  whether 
lie  thought  of  or  cared  for  the  world  to  which  ho 
was  going.  An  educated  Greek  who  had  ni'ver 
heard  of  the  New  Testament  might  have  died  as 
calmly  and  as  rationally.  Socrates  died  more  ra- 
tionally, Many  a  savage  in  our  Western  wilds  has 
died  elianting  his  tribal  death-song,  with  more  evi- 
dence of  fitness  to  meet  the  Great  Spirit  than  that 
man  over  whose  bier  thou.><ands  went  through  the 
forms  of  maOTiificent  mourniu!:'.  "•  I  had  rather  be 
a  doorkeeper  in  the  house  of  my  God  than  to 
dwell  in  the  tents  of  wickedness." 

5.  A  Christian  church  in  the  most  significant  env- 
hlcm  we  have  of  heaven.  '*  This  is  the  (fate  of 
heaven,"  said  the  astonished  patriarch.  He  had 
seen  angels.     Heaven  seemed  very  near  to  him. 

There  was  reason  in  the  simple  faith  of  our 
fathers,  which  interpreted  these  words  so  literally 
that  they  longed  to  build  theu-  tombs  underneath 


HONORING   god's   HOUSE.  77 

the  churches  where  they  and  their  fathers  wor- 
shipped, or  in  the  cheerful  "  God's  acre  "  around 
them.  They  wanted  to  Ije  close  at  hand  wlicn  the 
morning  dawned. 

It  was  one  of  the  strange  omissions  which  at- 
tracted the  wonder  of  St.  John  in  the  New  Jeru- 
salem, that  he  saw  no  temple  there.  But  he  adds 
as  a  reason,  am|)le  in  his  view,  that  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it.  Let 
us  not  lift  irreverently  the  veil  from  these  words  ; 
yet  they  must  mean  so  much  as  this,  —  that  in 
some  m3'^sterious  way  the  incfTahle  Godhead  will 
do  for  us  there  what  the  material  temples  of  our 
■worship  do  here.  These  are  the  antechamber  to 
that  awfid  yet  precious  Presence. 

It  is  an  inspiring  thought  also,  that  the  most 
intelligible  conception  the  Scriptures  give  us  of 
the  occupations  of  the  heaveidy  life  is  that  of 
churclily  song.  The  service  of  song  is  the  one 
grand  hint  which  our  embodied  spirits  can  com- 
prehend of  what  heaven  is,  and  what  we  are  to  do 
there.  Active  as  we  doubtless  shall  be  beyond  all 
conceptions  of  our  tired  faculties  here  ;  migrating, 
it  may  be,  in  chariots  of  eager  thought,  to  distant 
and  invisible  portions  of  the  universe, — yet  all 
that  we  do  shall  be  done  in  the  spirit  of  such  ecs- 
tatic gladness,  that  we  shall  live  in  a  state  of  holy 
and  triumphant  song.  Melody  shall  express,  more 
than  any  other  one  idea,  our  doing  and  our  being. 

For  one,  I  cannot  rid  myself  of  the  hope,  too, 


78  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

that  we  shall  sometimes — perhaps  on  great  anni- 
versaries commemorative  of  earthly  histories  — 
literally  sing  the  very  psalms  and  hymns  which 
are  so  often  the  "gate  of  heaven  "  to  us  here.  It 
would  he  sadder  parting  with  this  world  than  we 
liope  it  will  be  when  our  time  comes,  if  we  must 
forget  these  ancient  lyrics,  or  find  om*  tongues 
dunih  when  we  would  utter  them.  IIow  can  wo 
live  without  them?  Are  they  not  a  j)art  of  our  very 
being?  Take  them  away,  with  all  the  experienees 
of  whieli  they  are  the  s3'mb()l,  ant^  what  would 
there  be  left  of  us  to  carry  into  heaven  ? 

Some  lines,  at  least,  of  the  h}Tnn  "  Rock  of  ages, 
cleft  for  me,"  and  "  My  faith  looks  up  to  thee," 
and  "Not  all  the  blood  of  beasts,"  and  "Nearer, 
my  God,  to  thee,"  and  "Just  as  I  am,  without  one 
plea,"  —  must  we  part  with  them?  It  would  be 
like  parting  with  the  recognition  of  friends  in 
heaven. 

What  disembodied  life,  if  there  is  such  a  thing, 
may  be,  I  do  not  know.  To  my  earth-l)ound 
thouglit  it  Ls  what  I  imagine  the  gorgeous  pinions 
and  sportive  tlights  of  the  butterfly  are  to  the 
caterpillar.  But  one  thing  I  hope  and  pray  for: 
Of  old  friends,  and  old  scriptures,  and  old  hymns, 
and  old  litanies,  and  old  churches  where  the 
fathers  worshipped  their  God  and  miiic,  Lord, 
keep  my  memory  green  forever  I 


PRESUMPTION  IN   THE  WORSHIP  OF  GOD. 

But  when  [Uzziab]  was  strong,  his  heart  was  lifted  up  to  his 
(lestructidii:  (or  he  traiisjjri'sscd  aj^ainst  tho  Ix>rtl  his  God,  and 
went  into  the  tcuipk-  of  the  Lord  to  Vturn  incfiise  ui>on  tlu'  altar 
of  incense.  .  .  .  And  A/ariah  the  priest  went  in  after  him,  and 
with  him  fouracore  priests  of  the  Loni,  that  were  valiant  men: 
.  .  .  And  they  withstood  L'z/.iah  the  king,  and  said  unto  him,  It 
apportaineth  not  to  thee,  Uzziah,  to  burn  incense  unto  the  Lord, 
but  to  the  priests,  the  sons  of  Aaron,  that  are  consecrated  to 
burn  incense.  G<i  out  of  the  sanctuary,  for  thou  hast  trespassed. 
.  .  .  Then  Uzziah  was  wroth,  and  had  a  censer  in  his  hand  to 
burn  incense:  and  while  lie  wixs  wroth  with  the  priests,  the  lep- 
rosy even  rose  up  in  his  foreheatl  before  the  priests  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord,  from  beside  the  incense  altar.  .  .  .  And  Azariah  the 
chief  priest,  and  all  the  priests,  looked  upon  him,  and,  behold,  ho 
was  leprous  in  his  forehead,  aud  they  thrust  him  out  from  thence  ; 
yea,  himself  liasted  also  to  go  out,  because  the  Lord  had  smitten 
him.  —  2  CuiiON.  xxvi.  16-20. 

THE  pimisliment  of  sin  by  bodily  disease  is 
commonly  long  in  coming.  It  is  one  of  the 
apparent  after-thoughts  of  retribution  in  which  God 
clearly  expresses  his  accumulated  anger  against  sin 
long  ago  committed,  and  perhaps  forgotten. 

The  case  of  Uzziah  is  one  of  the  few  instances 
recorded  in  the  Scriptures  of  instant  and  severe 
punishment  of  the  sin  of  irreverence  and  presump- 
tion. God  does  not  always  punish  sin  in  the  same 
way.     The  sin  is  the  same,  age  after  age.     It  is 

79 


80  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA^MKNT. 

marvellous  how  liunian  nature  repeats  itself,  but 
God's  treatment  of  the  wrong  is  infinitely  diversi- 
fied. That  u'reverent  worshippers  are  not  all  lep- 
ers, is  no  proof  that  they  are  more  pleasing  to  God 
now  than  when  the  Juda'an  king  was  rehuked  by 
that  loathsome  disease. 

Let  us  note  some  of  the  ways  in  which  tlie  guilt 
of  presumption  in  the  worship  of  (i»>d  is  often  in- 
curred in  modern  times. 

1.  It  ought  not  to  provoke  a  smile  when  the 
first  is  named  as  that  of  deephuj  in*  GotVs  houae. 
We  must  not  be  severe  —  for  God  is  not  so  —  in 
ju<lging  of  the  aged  and  the  infirm  and  the  diseased, 
whose  worn-out  powers  yield  to  the  soporific  at- 
mosphere, and  perhaps  the  more  soporific  sermon, 
on  a  hot  Sunday  in  July.  One  of  the  most  touch- 
ing illustrations  of  (Jod's  charitable  judgment  of 
physical  infirmity  is  our  Lord's  plaintive  in<iuiry 
of  his  sleepy  disciples  in  the  garden,  in  which 
there  is  only  a  low  undertone  of  reproof:  "Could 
ye  not  watch  with  me  one  hour?"  Think  of 
falling  asleep  in  Gethsemane  I  Could  you  or  I 
have  done  it  ?  Yet  Christ  was  very  gentle  in  liis 
thought  of  his  weary  disciples ;  and  so  he  is  of  us, 
if  age  or  disease  renders  sleep  irresistible.  Certain 
insomniac  patients  have  been  known,  who  for  the 
most  part  could  sleep  only  in  the  house  of  God. 
Not  to  such  is  the  infirmity  charged  as  sin. 

But  when  no  such  excuse  exists,  when  sleep  is 
welcomed  by  the  hale  worshipper  as  a  means  of 


PRESUMPTION   IN   THE   WORSHIP   OF   GOD.      81 

whiliiig  away  an  irksome  hour,  few  things  of  the 
silent  sort  can  be  more  impertinent  to  the  most  high 
God.  Should  we  sleep  anywhere  else  where  God 
should  make  his  a^vful  presence  known?  Should 
we  have  slept  through  the  eartlujuake  at  Sinai? 
Shall  we  sleep  in  the  day  of  judgment?  EveJi  in 
our  death-hour  do  we  not  hope  at  least  to  have  all 
our  faculties  about  us  and  wide  awake?  The  case 
is  too  plain  for  argument.  That  man  coolly  insults 
God,  who  needlessly  composes  liimself  to  slumber, 
when  professing  to  be  a  suppliant  for  mercy  at  his 
feet. 

2.  Similar  is  the  presumption  of  neijJecting  to 
participate  in  divine  tvoship  when  present  in  God's 
house.  Negative  sins  are  sometiriies  most  intensely 
sinful.  Heedless  sins  are  sometimes  most  fearfully 
fatal. 

If  you  were  one  of  a  delegation  to  the  Court  of 
St.  James,  for  the  presentation  of  a  petition,  and 
■were  admitted  to  audience  with  the  Queen,  should 
you  think  it  becoming  to  the  dignity  of  the  royal 
presence  to  neglect  the  business  in  hand,  and  to 
wander  about  the  apartment  curiously,  while  your 
chairman  was  presenting  the  petition  in  your  name  ? 
Yet  that  which  woidd  be  only  a  breach  of  etiquette 
there,  is  a  much  graver  offence  in  the  house  of 
God.  A  listless  and  wandering  mmd  ro\ing  like 
fool's  eyes,  in  the  teniple  of  worship,  is  a  most  in- 
solent indignity  to  the  King  of  kings. 

Look  at  it  in  another  light.     When  the  Rev.  Dr. 


82  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TKSTAMENT. 

Armstrong  was  wrecked  with  a  large  number  of 
fellow-passengers  on  one  of  tlie  Sound  steamers, 
many  years  ago,  his  last  act  was  to  gather  his 
doomed  companions  together  in  the  shattered  cabin, 
and,  while  the  ship  was  thumping  to  pieces  on  the 
rocks,  lie  committed  their  souls  and  his  own  to 
Gt)d  in  prayer.  It  was  his  last  thant-e,  and  theirs, 
to  i)ray  tliis  side  of  eternity.  Men  who  had  not 
prayed  lor  yeai-s  prayed  then,  witli  agony  of  desire. 
If  you  had  been  one  of  tiiat  grouj),  would  you  have 
stood  or  sat  in  silent  contempt  of  tJie  solemnity? 
Yet  you  may  he  doing  just  that,  —  Hinging  insult 
in  the  face  of  (Jod  on  the  threshold  of  eternity, 
and  tossing  t«»  the  winds  your  last  chance  of  prayer, 
—  every  time  you  listen  to  publie  worship  in  wliich 
you  do  not  reverently  join. 

There  is  3et  another  aspect  of  it.  Like  all  other 
presumptuous  sins,  the  hearing  of  prayer  without 
partiripating  in  the  service  has  a  peculiarly  indu- 
rating f  fleet  on  the  conscience.  The  habit  deadens 
all  the  moral  sensibilities  auxiliary  to  conscience. 
The  sense  of  gratitude  is  dulled  if  thanksgiving  to 
God  falls  on  the  ear  without  awakening  response 
of  heart.  The  susceptibility  of  penitence  is  blunt- 
ed if  confession  of  sin  is  offered  in  the  hearing  of 
an  unanswering  soul.  The  sense  of  honor  is  be- 
numbed if  one  incurs  the  meanness  of  listening 
unmoved  to  an  acknowledgment  of  God's  claims 
upon  one's  love.  A  latent  sense  of  moral  propriety 
is  deadened  when  reverent  speech,  look,  attitudes, 


PRESUMPTION   IN   THE   ^VOIlS^IP   OF   GOD.      83 

are  expressed  annincl  one  wlio  gazes  in  stolid  va- 
cuity of  thought  and  torpor  of  feeling.  A  delicate 
sense  of  moral  Iteauty  is  drugged  by  the  hearing 
of  lioly  song  to  which  the  heart  is  apathetic.  Men 
rarely  appreciate  how  fearfully  they  debase  and 
delurni  the  most  godlike  faculties  of  their  being, 
b}'  the  quickly  growing  habit  of  unresponsive 
listening  to  the  services  of  God's  house. 

There  is  an  insidious  disease  which  slowly  and 
secretly  turns  vital  organs  of  the  body  to  bone. 
It  beghis  by  ossifying  little  fragments  of  tissue 
here  and  there.  No  medical  skill  can  arrest  its 
progress.  Nature  is  perverted  from  her  healthy 
processes  of  assimilation  and  nutrition,  to  the  crea- 
tion in  the  system  of  nothing  but  bone.  What 
should  be  life  to  muscle  and  nerve  and  sinew  and 
arteries,  turns  to  solid  and  lifeless  bone.  At 
length  the  heart  is  reached,  and  vital  parts  of  it 
become  bone,  and  its  beautiful  work  of  pulsation, 
by  which  life  is  sent  in  red  streams  to  the  very 
tips  of  the  fingers,  ceases,  and  death  ensues.  Such 
is  the  moral  induration  which  the  sensibilities  of  a 
soul  suffer,  when  long  appealed  to  by  the  services 
of  religion,  to  which  it  will  not  give  back  a  throb 
of  responsive  feeling.  Ossification  of  heart  may 
have  a  double  meaning. 

3.  Presumption  in  worship  may  take  the  form 
of  frequenting  the  house  of  Crod  as  a  place  of  enter- 
tainment merely.  "  Thou  art  to  them  as  a  very 
lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice,  and 


84  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

can  play  well  on  an  instrument ;  for  they  hoar  tliy 
words,  and  do  them  not."  Thus  the  Lord  said  to 
the  prophet  Ezekiel ;  and  it  is  a  truthful  record 
of  the  reception  wliich  multitudes  give  to  faithful 
and  eloquent  preaching.  Often  the  auditorium  of 
God's  house  is  turned  end  for  end.  It  is  not  the 
pulpit,  but  the  organ  and  the  operatic  quartette, 
which  entertain  the  wondering  listeners. 

In  a  certain  church  the  most  costly  music  that 
money  can  buy  is  furnished  to  the  worshippers. 
The  same  "stars"  api)ear  there  on 'Sunday  that 
stood  the  evening  before  on  the  stage  of  the  opera 
or  the  theatre.  An  entrance-fee  is  charged  at  the 
d(»(>r.  J\'(»ple  flock  tliitlier  as  to  a  place  of  re- 
ligious entertaiimient.  Many  of  them  profess  no 
otlier  motive.  The  sermon,  the  prayer,  the  scrip- 
tural lesson,  are  but  appendages  to  the  perform- 
ances of  the  operatic  troupe.  Is  that  worship? 
Can  God  be  pleased  with  it?  "My  house  shall 
be  called  a  house  of  prayer,  but  ye  have  made  it 
a  den  of  thieves."  Is  it  any  more  a  sin  to  sell  a 
dove  in  the  temple  than  to  sell  a  song  ?  The  only 
instance  in  which  our  Lord  gave  way  to  violence 
in  his  holy  indignation  was  at  the  sight  of  the 
desecration  of  the  sanctuary.  Would  he  not  find 
use  for  the  whip  of  small  cords  if  he  should  wan- 
der into  certain  churches  in  our  day  ? 

4.  We  are  guilty  of  presumptuous  sin  in  wor- 
ship, if  we  endeavor  to  conceal  from  ourselves 
hidden  sin  under  cover  of  scrupulous  devotion.     In 


PEESUaiPTION  IN   THE   "WORSHIP  OF   GOD.      85 

the  time  of  the  judges  of  Israel  there  lived  a  man, 
Micah  by  name,  who  stole  eleven  hundred  shekels 
of  silver.  He  built  him  an  idol  with  a  part  of  it, 
thus  "  consecrating  it  to  the  Lord  "  as  he  thought. 
He  was  an  idolater  and  a  thief.  His  conscience 
pricked  him.  So,  to  make  every  thing  sure,  he 
hired  a  young  Levite  to  be  his  household  chaplain. 
"  Now,"  said  he,  "  the  Lord  will  do  me  good,  see- 
ing that  I  liave  a  Levite  to  my  priest."  That 
was  a  semi-ljarbarous  age.  The  trick  of  the  thiev- 
ing rascal  seems  transparent.  We  marvel  that 
even  an  old  half-civilized  Jew  could  juggle  liim- 
•self  with  it.  But  are  there  no  such  self-cheated 
worshippers  in  our  tunes  ?  By  more  ingenious 
devices  perhaps,  and  in  more  recondite  twists  of 
conscience,  yet  not  a  wliit  less  impiously  towards 
God,  we  may  make  our  very  fidelity  to  God's 
house,  and  tlie  zeal  of  our  worship,  a  cover  to  hid- 
den sin  wliich  we  are  not  willing  to  abandon,  and 
therefore  not  willing  to  see. 

A  recent  celebrated  forger  in  New  York  was 
one  of  the  most  faithful  attendants  upon  the  wor- 
ship of  a  Christian  sanctuary.  For  years,  while 
he  was  setting  his  hand  to  the  deeds  for  which  he 
now  hes  in  the  penitentiary,  he  was  repeating 
every  sabbath  the  prayers  of  an  ancient  church ; 
singing  the  songs  which  the  voices  of  martyrs  had 
hallowed  ;  giving  freely  of  his  stolen  goods  to  the 
benevolences  of  God's  people  ;  and,  as  he  seems  to 
have  believed,  loving  rather  to  do  deeds  of  charity 


86  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJfENT. 

than  to  hoard  gohl.  It  Avoiihl  be  just  like  man,  if 
that  i)Oor  man  really  persuaded  himself  that  his  re- 
lijjious  devotions  would  somehow  offset  his  crimes. 
Yes :  that  is  man  as  he  is  by  nature.  Such  are  we 
all,  but  by  the  grace  of  God.  Our  very  consciences 
become  tortuous  and  serpentine  under  the  wiles 
of  sin,  till  we  verily  think  we  can  mock  God  with 
impunity.  Oh,  how  idiotic  we  become  when  we 
make  Satan  our  ally  ! 

5.  We  are  guilty  of  presumptuous  worship  when 
we  offer  to  God  services  in  which  any  essential  truth 
of  God's  being  is  denied  or  ignored.  A  celebrated 
preacher  of  "  another  gospel,"  recently  deceased, 
has  publislied  as  a  part  of  the  "  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus,"  as  he  understood  it,  the  folloAving  frag- 
ments :  "  I  take  not  the  Bible  for  my  master, 
nor  even  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  .  .  .  He  is  my  best 
historic  ideal  of  human  greatness;  not  without 
errors,  and  I  presume  of  course  not  without  sins. 
For  men  AWthout  sins  exist  in  the  dreams  of  girls. 
You  and  I  never  saw  such  a  one,  and  we  never 
shall."  Let  us  think  kindly  of  the  erring  one  who 
has  gone  to  a  world  where  the  "  Lamb  that  was 
slain  "  sits  as  judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead. 
He  has  discovered  before  this  time  who  and  what 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is.  He  has  learned  what 
that  means,  "  Who  is  the  brightness  of  his  glory 
and  the  cxj^ress  image  of  his  pci^son."  But  can 
God  ever  have  been  pleased  with  worship  which 
denied  his  triune  being;   with  pra3-er  which  as- 


PRESUMPTION   IN   THE   WORSHIP   OF   GOD.      87 

Slimed  that  the  Lord  of  glory  was  a  sin  ner ;  with 
songs  of  praise  in  which  the  claims  of  Ilim  who 
"  was  with  God,  and  was  God,"  were  ignored  ? 

How  God  will  deal  in  eternity  with  honest  in- 
fidelity, if  there  be  such  a  thing  in  the  strictest  and 
final  anal^'sis  of  the  liuman  heart,  we  may  safely 
leave  to  liim.  I  do  not  know,  and  do  not  wish  to 
know.  But  it  becomes  us  who  believe  with  all 
oiu"  souls  that  Jesus  Christ  is  indeed  the  Lord  of 
glory,  "  very  God  of  very  God,"  and  that  in  him 
we  have  an  infinite  and  eternal  and  sinless  Saviour, 
to  beware  how  we  offer,  or  seem  to  offer,  worship 
which  denies  him  liis  place  on  the  throne  of  the 
universe.  The  place  of  worship  where  he  is  thus 
denied  is  no  phuje  for  us.  Prayer  offered  other- 
wise than  in  his  name  is  not  prayer  to  us.  What- 
ever it  may  be  to  those  who  honestly  offer  it,  to  us 
it  cannot  be  worship  of  the  true  God.  We  kindle 
unhallowed  fire  on  a  strange  altar  if  we  thus  seek 
communion  with  the  Most  High.  Our  fellowship 
is  with  the  Father  and  his  Son  Jesus  Christ. 

Even  in  our  own  usages  of  prayer,  and  in  our 
own  sanctuaries,  we  need  to  be  most  watchful  of 
our  moods,  lest  we  pray  as  a  regenerate  heathen 
might  pray,  who  had  never  heard  of  Christ;  as 
Socrates  and  Plato,  for  aught  we  know,  may 
have  prayed ;  with  no  hearty  recognition  of  the 
merits  of  Clirist  as  our  only  ground  of  approach 
to  the  throne  of  grace.  A  redeemed  siuuer,  who 
believes  that  he  is  redeemed,  who  knows  that  he 


88  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

has  been  bought  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ, 
commits  an  act  of  fearful  presumption  if  he  ever 
hipses  into  what  may,  for  distinction's  sake,  be 
called  iuu-hr'i8tian  prayer.  In  what  other  form 
more  insolent  to  the  most  high  God  can  he  take 
God's  name  in  vain  ? 


FIDELITY  TO  THE  RELIGION  OF  A  GODLY 

ANCESTRY. 

And  the  Lord  was  with  Jehoshaphat,  because  he  w^alked  in 
the  ways  of  his  fathor  David,  and  soujjht  not  unto  Baulini;  but 
souRht  to  the  Lord  God  of  his  fatlur,  and  walked  in  his  com- 
luanchui'nts.  .  .  .  Therefore  the  Lord  stablished  the  kingdom  in 
his  hand ;  .  .  .  and  he  had  riches  and  honor  in  abundance.  — 
2  Cuijox.  xvii.  3-5. 

KING  JEHOSHAPHAT  was  the  son  of  a 
pious  father.  The  chief  fact  about  him 
which  the  Bible  emphasizes  is,  that  he  was  faithful 
to  that  father's  instructions,  and  followed  his  ex- 
ample. "  He  souglit  to  the  Lord  God  of  liis  father, 
and  walked  in  liis  connnandments."  He  was  also 
the  child  of  other  godly  ancestors,  gomg  far  back 
to  the  beginning  of  the  royal  line.  "  God  was 
with  Jehoshaphat,  because  he  walked  m  tlie  first 
ways  of  liis  father  David." 

In  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament,  much  is 
made  of  family  descent.  A  favorite  title,  by 
which  God  declared  himself  to  his  ancient  people, 
was,  "  The  God  of  thy  fathers."  Moses  at  the 
Red  Sea  sang,  "  The  Lord  is  my  father's  God, 
and  I  will  exalt  him."  King  Hezekiah  made  it 
his  plea  for  the  pardon  of  his  people :  "  The  good 

89 


90  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Lord  pardon  every  one  that  prcpareth  lus  heart  to 
seek  the  Lord  God  of  his  fathers."  Daniel  prays, 
"  I  thank  thee,  O  thou  God  of  my  fathers."  Solo- 
mon at  the  dedication  of  the  temple  prays,  "  The 
Lord  our  God  be  with  us  as  he  was  ^vith  our 
fathers."  Moses,  j^redicting  the  calamities  which 
should  come  upon  the  nation  in  the  distant  fu- 
ture, imagines  the  lookers-on  as  asking,  "  What 
mcaneth  the  heat  of  this  great  anger?"  And  he 
rei)lies,  "  Men  shall  say.  Because  they  have  for- 
saken the  covenant  of  the  Lord  God  of  their 
fathers." 

Yes,  in  the  theory  of  religion  and  its  blessings 
in  tlie  Old  Testament,  the  glory  of  the  children  is 
their  fathers.  One  topic  suggested  b}-  the  present 
lesson  is  that  of  fidelity  to  the  faith  and  example  of 
a  pious  ancestry.     Observe  :  — 

1.  It  is  an  unspeakable  blessing  to  have  been  born 
in  the  line  of  a  Christian  parentage.  Wliat  lan- 
guage can  express  the  thanksgivings  of  thousands 
of  us  for  our  Christian  mothers  ?  Do  not  many  of 
us  owe  as  much  to  the  firmness  and  the  prayers 
of  Christian  fathers?  How  many  of  us  could 
have  borne,  \nthout  a  wi-eck  of  character,  the 
temptations  of  early  youth,  but  for  the  hallowed 
restraints  of  a  Christian  home?  The  vbice  of 
family  prayer  is  that  of  a  guardian  angel  in  a 
multitude  of  homes. 

Much  more  than  godly  mstruction  and  exam- 
ple is  involved  in  the  blessing.     By  a  mysterious 


FIDELITY  TO   RELIGION.  91 

law  of  God's  government,  tendencies  to  character 
spring  from  the  line  of  natural  descent.  Quali- 
ties of  mind,  natural  sensibilities,  the  fineness  of 
conscience,  the  very  make  of  the  soul,  in  whicli 
the  elements  of  voluntary  character  germinate, 
come  to  us  by  no  choice  of  ours.  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  have  had  that  fountain  of  our  moral  being 
purified  and  vitalized  by  tlie  grace  of  God. 

The  purest  hlood  tliis  world  has  ever  known  is 
that  of  a  Christian  ancestry.  It  outranks  all 
other  aristocracies.  Descent  from  kings  and  em- 
perors bears  no  comparison  with  it.  Yes,  William 
Cowper,  thou  art  right :  — 

"My  boast  is  not  that  I  deduce  my  birth 
From  loins  enthroned,  the  rulers  of  the  earth; 
But  higher  far  my  proud  pretensions  rise,  — 
The  son  of  parents  passed  into  the  skies." 

The  length  of  the  line  of  Christian  inheritance 
is  in  many  cases  a  reduplication  of  the  blessing. 
Blessed  above  princes  of  the  blood  royal  is  a 
fellow-toAvnsman  of  mine,  who  is  the  descendant, 
in  the  eighth  generation,  from  a  well-known  Eng- 
lish martyr,  and  the  golden  cord  of  whose  godly 
heritage  has  never  once  in  all  that  time  been 
broken. 

It  is  an  impressive  thought,  what  an  accumula- 
tion of  prayer  surrounds  an  infant  at  its  birth  in 
such  a  line  !  It  was  a  favorite  habit  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers,  to  pray  for  their  posteritj-  to  the  end 


92  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJVIENT. 

of  time.  If  "their  angels  do  always  behold  the 
face  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven,"  a  convoy 
of  angels  must  herald  the  advent  of  such  an  infant 
upon  its  earthly  career.  What  a  different  thing  is 
the  probation  of  such  a  child  from  that  of  one 
who  bears  in  his  very  blood  the  virus  of  a  dozen 
generations  of  vice  and  pollution  ! 

Probably  in  no  other  nation  on  the  globe  are 
there  so  many  as  in  our  own  of  such  Christian 
families,  who  trace  back  then-  lineage  through 
centuries  of  prayer  and  godly  living.  Says  a 
historian  of  the  early  settlement  of  this  country, 
"  God  sifted  three  kingdoms,  that  he  might  send 
choice  spirits  to  people  this  continent."  Many  of 
us  are  li^^ng  in  grooves  of  spiritual  blessing,  fixed 
by  answered  prayer  a  thousand  years  before  we 
were  born.  An  eminent  Clnristian  of  my  acquaint- 
ance used  to  thank  God  daily  for  concealed  bless- 
ings. Chief  among  such  secret,gifts  is  the  shadowy 
hand  of  godly  ancestors,  stretched  forth  across  the 
asres  in  benediction  on  our  heads. 

2.  The  religion  of  our  fathers^hecause  it  is  siich, 
has  a  strong  j^resumptive  claim  upon  our  faith.  The 
presumption  may  be  balanced  by  opposing  evi- 
dence ;  but,  till  it  is  thus  neutralized,  it  exists  in 
the  case  of  every  man.  It  is  no  dishonor  to  a 
young  man  to  believe  in  the  religion  of  his  father. 
It  shows  no  want  of  independence  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian because  one's  father  was  a  Christian.  To 
believe  as  my  father  believed,  to  trust  the  faitJi 


FIDELITY   TO   EELIGION.  93 

which  my  mother  sang  to  me,  to  cling  to  the 
Christian  hopes  which  first  bloomed  at  the  fireside 
of  my  childhood's  home,  to  rest  in  my  inherited 
religion,  and  follow  the  example  of  my  godly 
parents,  is  no  nnmanly  thing.  God  forbid  that  I 
should  glory  in  breaking  loose  from  such  sacred 
ties !  Said  a  clergyman  of  my  acquaintance,  "  I 
have  been  young,  and  now  am  old,  and  I  have 
spent  my  life  in  the  study  of  the  religions  of  the 
world ;  but  I  have  yet  to  find  a  stronger  proof  of 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  than  I  dis- 
covered forty  years  ago  in  the  character  and  life 
of  my  father  and  mother." 

That  pride  of  intellect  wliich  a  young  man  some- 
times feels,  which  makes  him  thmk  that  nothing 
in  religious  faith  can  be  settled  by  the  past,  that 
he  must  therefore  inquire  de  novo,  as  if  no  expe- 
rience had  taught  his  ancestry  any  thing,  is  a  very 
weak  and  narrow  affection  of  the  brain.  No  gen- 
eration exists,  in  God's  plan,  for  nothing.  Every 
generation  of  Christian  believers  adds  something 
to  the  reasonable  faith  of  the  world  in  Christ,  as 
truly  as  every  generation  of  astronomers  furnishes 
data  for  the  calculations  of  astronomers  who  fol- 
low them.  I  have  no  more  reason  for  rejecting  the 
Christian  faith  of  my  father  because  I  have  not 
investigated  every  thing  about  it,  than  I  have  for 
going  back  to  the  Ptolemaic  theory  of  the  stars 
because  I  am  not  an  expert  in  the  Copernican 
astronomy. 


94  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

3.  It  is  one  of  the  divine  laws  of  the  increase  of 
the  (Jliurch^  that  the  children  of  CJiristian  parents 
should  themselves  be  Christians.  Tlie  conversion 
of  this  world  to  Christ  is  not  to  be  brought  about 
by  revivals  of  religion  alone.  There  are  laws  of 
grace  as  well  as  laws  of  nature.  There  is  a  law 
of  Cliristian  nurture,  by  which,  through  the  grace 
of  God,  every  Christian  family  becomes  a  nursery 
of  the  Church  of  Christ.  Such  is  God's  obvious 
design.  CJiaracter  is  not  transferable  from  father 
to  son,  but  the  elements  out  of  whivh  character 
grows  are  so.  Religion  once  rooted  in  a  Christian 
family  should  achieve  so  much  conservation  of 
Christian  forces.  A  moral  dike  is  thus  built  up 
against  tho  Hoods  of  dcj)ravity,  beliind  which 
children  may  be  safe,  as  Holland  is  from  the 
inroads  of  the  sea. 

There  is  no  good  reason  why  our  children  should 
not  yrow  up  into  Christian  faith,  instead  of  being 
\vTenched  into  it  by  moral  con\^lsions  after  years 
of  riot  in  depravity.  Plant  an  acorn  anywhere, 
and  anyhow,  in  good  soil,  and  it  will  grow  upward, 
and  not  downward.  By  the  law  of  its  being  it 
seeks  the  sun.  So  a  child  set  in  the  groundwork 
of  a  Christian  household,  and  nurtured  in  its  holy 
light  and  atmosphere,  should  by  the  very  condi- 
tions of  liis  existence  grow  up  towards  God  and 
heaven. 

Many  do  thus  grow  up  Cliristians.  Many  Chris- 
tian men  and  women  cannot  remember  the  day 


FIDELITY   TO   RELIGION.  95 

when  they  did  not  love  God  and  trust  in  Christ. 
A  Christian  childliood  may  be  reasonably  expected 
to  be  free  from  llasjrant  vices.  The  very  birth- 
hour  may  be  the  hour  of  holy  regeneration.  Cliris- 
tian  training  may  be  the  medium  of  sanctifying 
grace,  liy  this  hnv  of  religious  nurture,  as  well 
as  by  that  of  great  awakenings  from  a  godless 
life,  it  is  God's  design  that  tlie  Church  shall  grow, 
till  it  covers  all  the  families  of  the  redeemed. 
One  such  family  is  in  God's  plan  the  fountain  of 
a  pure  stream  which  is  to  widen  and  deepen  till  it 
flows  in  holy  majesty  into  eternity. 

4,  The  imitation  of  a  godly  ancestry  is  peculiarly 
pleasi7iy  to  God.  It  is  everywhere  so  represented 
ill  the  Scriptures.  Says  St.  Paul  to  Timothy,  "I 
thank  (Jod  when  I  call  to  remembrance  the  un- 
feigned faith  that  is  in  thee,  wliich  dwelt  first  in 
thy  grandmother  Lois  and  thy  mother  Eunice." 
The  transmission  of  godliness  to  the  third  genera- 
tion is  here  the  theme  of  thanksgiving. 

God  is  pleased  with  honor  paid  to  his  own  laws. 
Wlien  he  has  given  to  a  young  man  the  inestimable 
blessing  of  a  Christian  parentage,  he  looks  to  see 
the  blessing  recognized.  It  is  a  joy  to  Christ  to 
see  a  youth  treading  in  the  steps  of  a  Christian 
father,  and  pra3'ing  to  old  age  the  prayers  taught 
by  a  Christian  mother.  Such  a  life  honors  God's 
mode  of  procedure.  It  is  the  supreme  form  of 
obedience  to  parents,  ^vith  which  God  is  well 
pleased.     "When  Christian   living   follows  a  long 


96  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

line  of  godly  progenitors  running  back  through 
centuries  of  grace,  there  is  an  aicunnilation  of 
glory  to  the  gracious  pkms  of  God  which  cannot 
but  be  a  joy  to  him. 

T).  It  is  fin  act  of  ttii/nal  niul  rfhntlexn  (/iiilt,  to 
hr*ak  the  line  of  a  pinux  heritutje  hy  a  god/exn  life. 
It  involves  a  terrific  contest  with  (rod  for  the 
damnation  of  the  soul.  Tough  is  the  task  which 
such  a  young  man  sets  liimself,  to  destroy  his  soul. 
He  must  do  it  lighting  against  the  most  potent  de- 
vices of  (Jod  for  his  salvation.  Fatlfur's  counsels, 
mother's  prayers,  godly  example,  the  imhfinable 
atmosphere,  like  to  none  (tthcr,  of  a  Christian 
home,  tiie  holy  momentum  from  a  long  procession 
of  Christian  forefathers,  going  back,  it  may  be, 
into  unknown  hist«)ry,  must  be  j)ersistently,  in  dead 
earnest,  insolently,  contended  with  and  defied. 

That  is  a  conflict  more  siinguinarv,  and  of  more 
woful  issue,  than  any  ever  fought  with  sword  or 
cannon  on  sea  or  land.  A  tripled  and  quadrupled 
cordon  of  spiritual  inlluences  must  be  charged  and 
broken  through.  Such  forces  are  never  overcome 
but  1)V  tlie  aid  of  opposing  forces  from  the  powers 
of  darkness.  Such  a  one  must  achieve  his  destruc- 
tion by  inviting  Satan  into  alliance.  He  must  throw 
himself  into  the  embrace  uf  malignant  auxiliaries. 
It  is  as  if  he  cried  out  from  within  the  reserved 
enclosure  in  which  God  lias  sought  to  protect  him, 
'*  Come  and  help  me  to  withstand  God  I  "  Oh  !  it 
is  the  saddest  sight  that  angels  ever  look  upon, 


FIDELITY   TO   RELIGION.  97 

wlien  the  child  of  a  ^odly  aiK-estry  forces  his  way 
to  hell  over  tiiiiupled  prayers,  and  mangled  forms 
of  fathers  and  mothers  extending  back  in  the 
shadtiwy  past  j)erhaps  a  thonsand  years. 

Of  the  eminent  men  in  American  history,  no 
one  has  come  t(>  the  close  of  life  under  a  darker 
cloud  of  reprobation  from  God  and  man  than 
Aaron  Burr.  He  was  the  son  of  parents  eminent 
for  piety.  His  father  was  the  venerable  president 
of  a  Christian  college.  His  mother  was  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  Rev.  President  Edwards,  a  most  godly 
man,  and  herself  also  a  woman  renowned  for  lier 
rare  Christian  culture.  The  family  ext^^nded  far 
back  in  a  luminous  pathway  of  Christian  faith  and 
prayer.  Wliat  an  accumulation  of  holy  forces  was 
concentrated  upon  Aaron  Burr's  boyhood  and  early 
manhood !  They  surrounded  him  in  no  liard,  re- 
pellant  forms,  but  in  the  genial  graces  and  beau- 
tiful adornments  of  educated  Christian  society. 
The  piety  of  his  father  Wiis  lighted  up  by  a  miith- 
ful  humor.  Xo  hajipier  men  ever  lived  tlian  the 
clergy  of  that  age.  The  best  education  of  the 
times,  too,  was  liis.  Thuii  directed,  so  far  as  home 
and  inheritance  and  circumstance  could  do  it,  thus 
directed  toward  heaven,  he  entered  on  his  active 
manhood. 

When  approaching  his  twentieth  year,  he  be- 
came interested  in  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  The 
Spirit  of  God  then  clearly  set  before  liim  the  great 
alternative,  and  pressed  his  decision  on  the  side  of 


98  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

virtue  and  religion.  Pie  retired  for  some  weeks  to 
a  rural  town  in  Connecticut,  for  the  sake  of  set- 
tling once  for  all  the  question  of  his  religious 
character.  Nobody  knows  what  was  the  history 
of  those  critical  weeks,  —  through  what  conflicts 
lie  passed,  how  near  he  may  have  approached  to 
the  God  of  his  fathers,  nor  what  fatal  influences 
turned  him  back.  But  he  came  home  resolved, 
as  he  said,  "  never  again  to  trouble  himself  about 
his  soul's  salvation." 

To  all  appearance  he  kept  that  resolution  to  the 
last.  The  die  was  cast,  as  he  meant  it  should  be, 
"  once  for  all."  It  is  not  known  that  he  was  ever 
again  seriously  disturbed  by  religious  convictions. 
He  entered  on  wliat  promised  to  be  a  brilliant 
})ublic  career,  without  God  and  without  hope.  He 
passed  through  it  a  godless  man.  He  ended  it 
disappointed  in  his  ambitions,  and  soured  against 
all  the  world.  He  died  in  obscurity,  abandoned 
by  old  fi-iends  for  years  before,  unsaluted  by  them 
as  they  passed  him  in  the  street,  with  the  guilt  of 
murder  on  his  soul,  and  the  brand  of  Cain  on  his 
bi"ow.  So  far  as  man  can  know,  he  went  speech- 
less into  eternity,  with  a  seared  conscience  and  a 
hardened  heart.  God  suffered  him,  as  he  generally 
does  suffer  such  men,  to  die  as  he  had  lived. 

His  was  a  representative  history,  —  representa- 
tive of  those  who  break  the  line  of  ancestral  piety, 
and  force  theii-  way  to  an  irreligious  life  and  death, 
in  defiance  of  God's  protective  plans  for  their  sal- 


FIDELITY    TO    RELIGION.  99 

vation.  It  is  an  appalling  question  —  do  not  angels 
pause,  and  "  lean  on  their  harps  "  to  catch  the  an- 
swer ?  —  "  Who  are  the  Aaron  Buits  now  living  in 
Chi"istian  families  ?  " 


THE   LOST   SON   OF  A   GODLY   FATHER. 

Tlie  Lord  brought  Judah  low  because  of  Ahaz  king  of  Israel. 
And  in  the  time  of  his  distress  did  he  trespass  yet  more  against 
the  Lord.  This  is  that  king  Ahaz.  .  .  .  lie  said,  Because 
the  gods  of  the  kings  of  S.\Tia  help  them,  therefore  will  I  sacri- 
fice to  them,  that  thej'  may  help  me.  But  they  were  the  ruin  of 
him.  .  .  .  And  in  every  several  city  of  Judali  ho  made  high 
places  to  hum  incense  unto  other  gods,  and  provoked  to  anger 
the  Lord  God  of  his  fathers.  —  2  Cmtox.  xxviii.  19,  22,  23,  25. 

"TTT^HEREFORE  do  the  wiekud  Uve?"  Some 
>  »  wic-ked  men  are  among  the  most  useful 
of  maiildnd.  Certain  poisons  medical  science  uses 
to  fight  certain  diseases  which  yield  to  no  other 
remedy.  So  certain  examples  of  iniquity  may  be 
transformed  by  the  grace  of  God  into  remedial 
forces,  by  the  contrast  they  furnish  to  the  virtues, 
and  the  wisdom  they  teach  to  observers. 

King  Ahaz  is  one  of  the  stupendous  monuments 
of  guilt  in  Israelitish  history.  He  is  one  of  the 
few  men  in  any  liistory  of  whom  not  one  good 
thine:  is  recorded.  His  career  was  one  uniform 
and  unmitigated  stream  of  iniquity  from  begin- 
ninsT  to  end.  Not  one  virtue  or  virtuous  act  is 
thoujjht  worthy  of  mention  in  his  whole  life.  So 
black  and  disgraceful  was  liis  reign,  that  when  he 

100 


THE  LOST  SON  OF  A  GODLY  FATHER.   101 

died,  the  indignant  and  revolted  conscience  of  the 
nation  refused  him  burial  in  the  ro3'al  sepulchre. 

Let  us  inquire  what  lessons  may  be  learned  from 
the  life  of  such  a  supreme  model  of  depravity. 

1.  His  career  illustrates  that  law  of  character  by 
which  the  wickedness  of  a  man  is  proj^ortioned  to 
the  amount  of  holy  influence  which  he  has  conquered. 
We  find  a  reason  for  his  extreme  depravity  in  the 
extreme  facilities  which  he  had  for  being  a  saint. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  godly  father.  His  youth  was 
passed  under  the  restraints  of  holy  example.  He 
was  one  in  a  royal  line  which  had  been  distin- 
guished for  examples  of  illustrious  piety.  He  had 
good  blood.  He  came  from  good  stock.  He  knew 
thai  he  alone,  of  all  the  monarchs  of  the  world, 
held  his  crown  and  kingdom  by  divine  riglit  as 
king  of  God's  chosen  people.  He  knew  that  a 
splendid  history  lay  behind  him,  and  that  a  more 
splendid  future  was  before  liim.  In  the  line  of 
regal  descent,  in  which  he  was  a  connecting  link. 
One  was  to  appear  in  whom  all  the  nations  of  the 
world  were  to  be  blessed.  That  ancient  promise 
of  God  to  Abraham  spanned  like  a  rainbow  the 
royal  family  of  Judah.  Mysterious  as  its  meaning 
was,  it  must  have  been  a  power  of  moral  restraint 
and  moral  stimulus  to  a  man  called  of  God  to  sit 
on  the  throne  of  Judah. 

Said  a  French  monarch,  when  once  solicited  to 
consent  to  a  dishonorable  treaty,  "  The  blood  of 
Charlemagne  is  in  my  veins;    and  who  dares  to 


^ 


102  STUDIES   OP   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

propose  this  tliiiij^  to  me  ?  "  The  sense  of  honor- 
able inheritance  must  luive  been  a  moral  power  of 
immense  significance  to  a  monarch  who  stood  in  a 
line  of  theocratic  princes.  And  it  was  not  frit> 
tered  away  and  lost  in  the  mere  sense  of  chivalry : 
it  was  a  direct  and  potent  help  to  holy  living 
before  God.  Such  a  combination  of  holy  inllu- 
ence  this  Judiean  king  broke  through;  and  there- 
fore he  became  the  man  he  was.  The  depth  of  Ids 
fall  was  proportioned  to  the  momentum  acquired 
in  bursting  the  bonds  which  held  him. 

Such  is  the  natural  working  of  things  in  the 
experience  of  sin.  It  is  a  fundamental  law  of 
character.  As  virtue  is  proportioned  in  vigor  to 
the  temptations  resisted,  so  depravity  is  propor- 
tioned to  the  forces  of  conscience  and  inheritance 
and  education  and  ('xam[)le  and  persuasion,  and 
the  Spirit  of  God,  wliich  have  been  fought  with 
and  conquered.  This  must  alwaj's  be  reckoned  in 
forecasting  a  man's  future  in  a  career  of  sin.  The 
best  things  perverted  are  the  worst.  Christian 
birth  abused  becomes  a  curse.  Religious  educa- 
tion trampled  on  becomes  a  fountain  of  moral 
disease.  Sal)baths  broken  become  an  opportunity 
to  vice.  Natural  sensibilities  to  religion,  indurated 
by  transgression,  become  a  foundation  for  towering 
iniquity.  Convictions  of  sin  resisted  are  often 
transformed  into  beliefs  of  falsehood.  The  striv- 
ings of  the  Holy  Spirit  quenched  become  the 
basis  of  Satanic  conquest.  Devils  fill  the  place 
from  which  the  Spirit  of  God  has  been  ejected. 


THE  LOST  SON  OF  A  GODLY  FATHER.   103 

It  used  to  be  proverbial  in  the  days  of  American 
slavery,  that  the  most  ferocious  overseers  were 
Northern  men  who  had  to  override  the  convictions 
of  their  youtli  and  their  inherited  faith  in  order  to 
become  slave-drivers.  This  was  one  variety  of  the 
universal  law  which  governs  the  degree  of  charac- 
ter, good  or  bad.  Tell  me  what  good  influence 
a  man  has  defied  and  scorned  in  becoming  what 
he  is,  and  I  will  give  you  the  gauge  of  his  de- 
pravity. The  worst  of  men  are  apostates  fi-om  the 
best  of  faiths. 

2.  The  career  of  this  apostate  prince  illustrates 
also  the  faithfulness  of  God  in  chastising  ivicked 
men  for  their  good.  '■"  The  Lord  brought  Judah 
low  because  of  Ahaz."  From  the  beginnmg  to 
the  end  of  his  reign,  he  experienced  the  truth 
that  the  way  of  transgressors  is  hard.  In  war  he 
was  whipped  all  around.  In  alliances  he  was 
cheated  and  checkmated.  His  people  were  made 
captives  by  thousands.  Nothing  went  well  with 
him.  His  public  life  was  one  long  career  of  de- 
fying God,  yet  of  God's  persistent  efforts  to  save 
limi  by  chastising  Mm. 

This  is  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  the  ex- 
perience of  wicked  men.  Such  men  often  think  it 
a  great  mystery  that  they  suffer  so  much.  They 
do  not  understand  why  it  is  that  misfortune  pur- 
sues them  so.  "  Just  my  luck,"  says  one,  when  ill 
success  attends  his  business.  Yet  often  the  secret 
reason  is  that  God  is  trying  to  save  the  man.     He 


104  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

is  contending  with  God  in  one  way,  and  God  is 
contending  with  him  in  another.  There  is  no 
luck  about  it.  It  is  God's  faithfuhiess  to  the  soul, 
at  the  expense  of  the  pocket. 

"  It  is  a  great  mystery ;  I  do  not  understand  it  : 
it  is  unjust,"  says  an  ungodly  man  whom  disease 
lays  low,  perhaps  just  on  the  eve  of  splendid  suc- 
cesses. The  cup  is  dashed  from  his  lips,  just  when 
he  is  best  able  to  enjoy  it.  Ill  health  follows  him 
perhaps  till  he  is  glad  to  find  such  rest  as  he  can 
in  the  grave.  Often  it  is  no  mystery."  It  is  God's 
striving  to  save  the  man.  It  is  God's  faithfulness 
to  his  soul,  at  the  cost  of  his  body.  Somebody's 
prayers  are  answered  in  his  afflictions. 

In  one  of  the  works  of  a  popular  author  of  fic- 
tion, a  \\'icked  man,  engaged  in  a  wicked  business, 
is  represented  as  scolding  and  swearing  at  and 
beating  liis  Christian  wife,  because  she  persists  — 
poor  soul  I  —  in  praying  for  him.  He  protests  that 
she  shall  stop  pra3dng,  or  he  must  stop  his  busi- 
ness. Both  cannot  go  on  together:  one  or  the 
other  must  give  way.  He  thinks  he  has  tried  it, 
and  found  it  so.  The  fancy  is  often  true  to  fact. 
Often  prayer  cannot  be  answered  except  by  chas- 
tising a  man.  He  must  be  whipped  out  of  his 
sins,  or  he  never  can  be  a  happy  man.  This  is  the 
secret  of  the  misfortunes  of  many  an  ungodly  man. 

The  sufferings  of  this  world  are  not  in  the  strict 
sense  retributive.  They  are  disciplinary.  The 
world  of  retribution  lies  farther  on.     In  love,  God 


THE  LOST  SON  OF  A  GODLY  FATHER.   105 

holds  the  rod  over  many  a  bad  man.  He  strikes 
him  here,  and  he  strikes  liim  there.  God's  flail 
threshes  him  like  wheat.  He  surrounds  him  with 
trouble.  He  heaps  up  misfortunes.  They  come 
thick  and  fast.  Life  is  one  long  disappointment. 
"  Few  and  evil  have  my  days  been,"  is  his  lament 
as  he  looks  backward :  "  all  is  vanity  and  vexation 
of  spirit."  Is  not  this  the  general  feeling  with 
which  men  reach  old  age  without  the  consolations 
of  rjeligion  ?  "  Oh  that  I  had  never  been  born  !  " 
exclaimed  Voltaire  in  his  old  age.  But  in  this 
experience  of  the  wicked,  God  is  never  vindictive. 
This  is  his  way  of  striving  to  save  men  from  eter- 
nal death.  Sometimes  he  pursues  it  to  the  very 
last,  till  the  grave  closes  over  the  incorrigible 
sinner,  and  he  passes  on  to  a  world  where  the 
retributive  decisions  of  eternity  displace  the  be- 
nign discipline  of  time. 

3.  The  life  of  this  depraved  prince  illustrates 
further  the  extreme  which  sin  reaches  tvhen  men  fight 
successfully  against  GocVs  chastisements.  "  In  the 
time  of  his  distress  did  he  trespass  yet  more  against 
the  Lord."  This  is  the  fearful  phenomenon  some- 
times witnessed  in  the  developments  of  sin  in  this 
world.  Some  men  are  not  subdued  by  suffering. 
They  refuse  to  bow  to  chastisement.  The  more 
they  suffer,  the  more  they  sin.  Trouble  angers 
them  against  God.  They  indicate  their  growing 
fitness  for  the  world  of  woe  in  this  induration  of 
heart   by   wliich   susceptibility   to   the    softening 


106  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJMENT. 

effect  of  sorrow  is  destroyed.  Sometimes  this 
phenomenon  is  witnessed  on  a  large  scale.  Times 
of  pestilence  are  proverbially  times  of  unusual 
wickedness  in  great  cities.  The  j)lague  in  London 
developed  the  vices  of  the  metropolis  frightfully. 
Men  patrolled  the  streets  singing  ribald  songs 
beside  the  dead-cart.  In  the  peril  of  shipwreck, 
two  classes  of  sufferers  are  often  observed,  —  those 
whom  the  peril  subdues  to  prayer,  and  those  whom 
it  tlrives  to  the  rum-bottle. 

When  the  Pemberton  Factory  fell,  two  classes 
of  sufferers  were  crushed  under  the  ruins,  and 
two  sets  of  voices  came  forth  from  the  smoke 
and  flame.  The  favorite  hymns  of  the  Methodist 
Church  from  the  one  cb-owned  the  curses  and  im- 
precations from  the  other.  Thus  the  two  went  up 
on  those  wings  of  fire  to  meet  God.  How  like  to 
the  contrast  of  the  two  crucified  thieves !  "  Lord, 
remember  me  ; "  and,  "  If  thou  be  the  Christ,  save 
thyself  and  us." 

Few  things  are  so  trutliful  a  touchstone  to  the 
character  of  men  as  the  way  in  which  they  treat 
the  suffering  wliich  God  sends  as  chastisement. 
One  man  turns  at  its  bidding,  and  becomes  an 
heii-  of  glory;  another  defies  it,  and  becomes  a 
monument  of  perdition.  Lord,  who  maketh  us  to 
differ? 

4.  The  reign  of  this  wicked  monarch  illustrates 
the  disappointments  ivhicli  wicked  men  experience  in 
their  hopes   of    happiness  in  sin.     The    liistorian 


THE  LOST  SON  OF  A  GODLY  FATHER.   107 

relates  of  him  :  "  He  said,  Because  the  gods  of  the 
kings  of  Syria  help  them,  therefore  will  I  sacrifice 
to  them,  that  they  may  help  me.  But  they  were 
the  ruin  of  him.''''  True  to  the  life,  every  word  of 
it !  In  no  more  truthful  figure  can  we  express  the 
experience  of  many  young  men  who  enter  on  a 
career  of  worldliness.  They  see  other  men  living 
for  this  world  alone,  as  it  seems  to  a  looker-on,  on 
the  top  of  the  wave  of  human  felicity.  A  rich 
man  seems  to  them  a  supremely  happy  man.  A 
successful  statesman  appears  to  have  all  that  an 
aspiring  man  can  ask  for.  A  man  who  has  gained 
the  summit  of  social  rank  and  splendor  becomes, 
to  many  who  are  below  hmi,  the  model  of  earthly 
bliss.  Any  man  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  seems 
very  high  up  to  a  man  at  the  bottom.  So  a  young 
man  is  apt  to  look  on  the  world  to  which  he  pro- 
poses to  devote  his  being.  '•  The  world  makes 
these  men  happy,"  he  says ;  "  and  I  will  try  it,  that 
it  may  make  me  happy  too."  This  is  the  secret 
experience,  probably,  of  all  who  give  themselves 
deliberately  to  a  life  of  irreligion.  They  are 
allured  by  the  glamour  of  irreligious  prosperity. 

But,  when  they  try  the  experiment  for  them- 
selves, ''  it  is  the  ruin  of  them."  The  fruit  turns 
to  ashes.  No  such  young  man  ever  finds  the 
world  to  be  what  it  looked  to  be  when  he  surveyed 
it  from  afar.  It  is  a  beautiful  mirage.  The  testi- 
mony of  experience  is  proverbial,  that  the  richest 
men  are  not  the  happiest  men.     The  most  success- 


108  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

ful  ambitious  men  are  not  the  happiest  men.  The 
pleasure-seekers  who  seem  to  have  their  fill  of  all 
they  planned  for  in  life  are  not  the  happiest  men. 
One  word  expresses  the  issue  of  all  such  experi- 
ments,—  disappointment.  This  world  is  full  of 
soured  and  disappointed  men.  The  more  irreli- 
gious men  are,  the  more  profoundly  they  experi- 
ence this  inward  consciousness  of  failure  in  their 
life's  plans.  They  have  "  hewed  out  to  themselves 
broken  cisterns  that  can  ludd  no  water." 

In  one  of  Hawthorne's  thrillingly  fehrful  fictions, 
he  represents  a  wretched  man  going  about  with  a 
serpent  in  liis  bosom.  Every  now  and  then  he 
clutches  at  his  breast  with  his  fingers,  crying,  "It 
gnaws  me  ;  it  gnaws  me  !  "  As  lie  walks  the  streets 
among  his  kind,  he  thinks  he  finds  that  every 
man  he  meets  is  cursed  with  the  same  snaky  guest 
in  his  bosom.  Each  man  at  intervals  seems  to 
thrust  his  hand  up  to  throttle  the  reptile.  All 
alike  are  doomed  to  the  hideous  companionship. 
"  It  gnaws  me  ;  it  gnaws  me  I "  is  the  universal 
confession.  The  whole  world  seems  to  his  crazed 
fancy  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  vipers,  each  man 
warminof  and  cTierishinff  his  own. 

Such  a  world  is  any  world  of  beings  given  over 
to  seeking  happiness  in  itself.  Such  is  this  world, 
except  as  its  fearful  consciousness  is  relieved  by 
the  grace  of  God.  Such  is  self  in  any  man  or 
woman,  when  turned  away  from  God  and  turned 
inward.     No   flagrant   crimes   like   those    of    the 


THE  LOST  SON  OF  A  GODLY  FATHER.   109 

JiicUean  king  are  necessary  to  reduce  a  man  to  this 
condition  of  inward  and  conscious  curae.  Perjury, 
arson,  murder,  are  not  the  only  nor  the  most  com- 
mon precursors  of  such,a  doom.  A  man  has  only 
to  abandon  God,  and  live  to  himself,  and  he  is  as 
sure  of  it  as  Judas.  Such  a  man  may  sit  on  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars,  or  revel  in  the  wealth  of  "  far- 
thest Ind ;  "  yet  he  carries  the  snake  in  his  bosom. 
In  liis  honest  hours,  when  he  confesses  the  truth 
to  his  own  soul,  his  ghastly  soliloquy  is,  "  It  gnaws 
me  ;  it  gnaws  me  !  " 

5.  The  career  of  this  wi-etched  prince  illustrates 
the  distinction  ivhich  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  gain 
in  this  world  as  a  monument  of  guilt.  "He  did 
trespass  more  against  the  Lord.  TJiis  is  that  king 
Ahaz!'^  Such  is  the  reflection  of  the  annalist, 
after  enumerating  the  monarch's  crimes.  "  This  is 
that  king  Ahaz.  Look  at  him ;  mark  him  !  let  him 
stand  in  history  as  a  monster  of  iniquity ;  let  the 
world  stand  agliast  at  liim."  Such  seems  to  be 
the  spirit  of  the  inspired  recorder.  We  all  natu- 
rally crave  distinction,  —  one  man  for  one  thing, 
another  for  another :  all  hanker  for  it  in  something. 
Any  thing  to  lift  us  up  and  out  of  the  common 
herd !  This  is  the  temper  of  a  world  without  God. 
It  is  possible  for  a  man  of  reckless  impiety  to  be- 
come illustrious  for  guilt,  and  that  only.  Some 
such  names  stand  out  in  history,  and  will  stand 
thus  forever.  Where  all  are  sinners,  some  become 
guilty  above  their  fellows,  —  princes  in  depravity  ; 


110  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST  ANIENT. 

royal  dukes  in  iniquity ;  men  so  like  to  Satan  in 
character,  that  he  dwells  with  and  takes  possession 
of  them  before  the  tune. 

This,  I  repeat,  is  possible  to  any  man.  It  re- 
quires no  great  genius  or  invention.  A  man  need 
not  travel  far  and  explore  distant  seas  to  gain  the 
means  of  this  hideous  renown.  It  requires  only 
a  strong,  persistent,  and  selfish  ivilU  determined  to 
fio^ht  God.  This  is  the  natural  drift  of  sin.  What 
a  scaffold  is  among  hiunan  punishments,  what  hy- 
drophobia is  among  deadly  diseases,'  such  may  a 
man  become  among  his  fellow-sinners,  by  simply 
giving  himself  to  himself,  and  defying  the  rights 
of  God. 

This  is  the  legitimate  ending  of  a  long  career 
of  alternate  chastisement  and  sin  without  repent- 
ance. A  Cornish  proverb  says,  "He  that  will  not 
be  rided  by  the  rudder  must  te  ruled  by  the 
rock."  This  is  the  rock  on  which  haughty  and 
defiant  guilt  is  wrecked.  It  is  simply  left  to  itself, 
to  become  what  it  has  chosen  to  be,  —  such  a  de- 
mon of  iniquity  as  to  be  abhorred  of  God  and  man. 
God  save  us  from  ourselves !  We  carry  within 
us  the  elements  of  hell,  if  we  but  choose  to  make 
them  such.  Ahaz,  Judas,  Nero,  Borgia,  Alva, — 
all  w^ere  once  prattling  infants  in  happy  mothers' 
arms.  The  first  babe  of  our  race  —  a  marvel  of 
joy  to  the  first  mother  —  was  the  first  murderer. 
Who  shall  dare  to  encounter  the  possibilities  of 
human  guilt,  without  the  grace  of  God  ? 


THE  GODLY  SON  OF  AN  UNGODLY  FATHER. 

Hezekiah  .  .  .  did  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord,  according  to  all  that  David  his  father  had  done.  Thus  did 
Hezekiah  .  .  .  and  wrought  that  which  was  good  and  right  and 
truth  before  the  Lord  his  God.  And  in  every  work  that  he  be- 
gan in  the  service  of  the  house  of  God,  and  in  the  law,  and  in 
the  commandments,  to  seek  his  God,  he  did  it  with  all  his  heart, 
and  prospered."  — 2  Chron.  xxix.  1,  2,  xxxi.  20,  21. 

ONE  liuman  life  illustrates  the  whole  govern- 
ment of  God.  We  live  under  such  overshad- 
owiugs  of  God's  purposes,  that  at  every  turn  we 
come  upon  something  which  shows  forth  principles 
which  are  eternal.  Truth  is  indeed  stranger  than 
fiction.  Romance  cannot  equal  the  grandeur 
which  every  human  life,  if  read  aright,  discloses. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  Bible  is  made  up  so  largely  of 
fragments  of  biography. 

1.  Studying  the  life  and  reign  of  Hezekiah,  we 
discover,  among  other  things,  that  he  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  sovereignty  of  God  in  conversion.  He 
was  one  of  the  model  princes  of  Judah.  Yet  early 
in  his  life  his  conversion  was  one  of  the  most  im- 
probable of  events.  He  was  the  son  of  one  of  the 
most  impious  monarchs  that  ever  sat  on  the  throne 

of  Israel.    Bad  blood  was  in  his  veins.     His  youth 

111 


112  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

was  cursed  by  a  most  polluted  parental  example. 
The  abominations  of  Oriental  idolatry  were  the 
atmosphere  of  liis  childhood.  Not  in  the  retire- 
ment of  a  private  home,  surrounded  by  better 
homes,  did  he  live,  but  among  the  splendid  cor- 
ruptions of  a  court  which  set  the  ciu-rent  of  pop- 
ular opinion,  and  defiled  the  whole  kingdom.  No 
other  spot  on  earth  is  so  fatal  to  youthful  inno- 
cence as  a  corrupt  court.  Yet  there  this  heir  to 
the  tlirone  was  born  and  bred.  Parental  and  royal 
example  combined  to  make  him  a  b;id  man  and  a 
worse  king. 

It  is  the  mj'^sterious  lot  of  many  other  men,  to 
be  born  and  educated  under  circumstances  wliich 
render  their  conversion  to  God  intrinsically  im- 
probable. They  seem  born  to  vice.  Tliey  are 
trained  to  immorality.  Childish  and  even  infan- 
tile lips  are  taught  to  profiuie  God's  name.  This 
is  not  always  the  lot  of  the  poor  and  the  ignorant 
only.  It  was  the  favorite  pastime  of  one  of  the 
statesmen  of  the  first  period  of  our  Republic,  to 
teach  his  beautiful  little  motherless  daughter  at 
four  years  of  age  to  prattle  the  oaths  with  which 
his  own  conversation  was  polluted.  It  is  one  of 
the  unsolved  mysteries  of  God's  government,  that 
such  enormities  are  permitted.  Humming-birds 
seem  to  have  a  more  blessed  existence  than  the 
children  of  such  impious  fathers  and  mothers. 

Yet  God  often  enters  such  homes  with  his  sav- 
ing grace.    He  spcidis  the  word,  '*  Thou  art  mine," 


THE   GODLY   SON   OF  AN   UNGODLY  FATHER.   113 

and  a  child  of  immortality  is  saved.  Chi-ist  is 
swift  to  take  such  a  little  one  in  his  arms,  and 
bless  it ;  and  it  becomes  an  heir  of  glory.  It  is 
like  God  to  do  sovereign  things.  Therefore  it 
is  like  God  to  do  things  which  to  human  view 
seem  to  border  on  the  impossible. 

2.  The  conversion  of  Ilezekiah^  therefore^  should 
give  encoura<jeme7it  to  the  children  of  unchristian 
parents.  So  much  is  often  said,  and  justly,  of  the 
covenant  of  God  with  Christian  parents,  that 
sometimes  in  the  contrast  a  cloud  seems  to  rest 
over  the  destiny  of  those  who  do  not  share  that 
blessing.  Said  one  child  of  vice,  "My  father 
was  a  drunkard,  and  my  grandfather  was  a  drunk- 
ard before  him  ;  I  shall  be  a  tbunkard  too ;  we 
belong  to  a  race  of  drunkards.  I  may  as  well 
accept  my  lot  first  as  last :  it  is  my  fate."  Said 
another,  a  man  of  high  culture,  but  notorious  for 
his  ungoverned  passions,  "  My  father  was  just  so : 
his  boys  are  all  so.  We  can't  live  in  peace  to- 
gether :  we  never  did.  We  are  all  possessed  of  the 
devil :  I  can't  help  it." 

Not  so  does  God  reason.  "  All  souls  are  mine," 
he  declares.  "  The  son  shall  not  bear  the  iniquity 
of  the  father,"  is  his  law.  "  If  he  beget  a  son 
that  seeth  all  his  father's  sins,  and  doeth  not  such 
like,  he  shall  not  die  for  the  iniquity  of  his  lather : 
he  shall  surely  live.  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it 
shall  die."  The  principle  of  individual  responsi- 
bility is  most  sacredly  built  into  the  foundations 


114  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA3IENT. 

of  God's  gfovernment.  He  uever  swerves  from  it 
the  breadth  of  a  liair.  In  tliis  respect,  every  man, 
woman,  and  chikl  on  the  globe  stands  alone  before 
God,  as  if  no  other  man,  woman,  child,  had  stood 
before  them.  Each  one  of  us  stands  alone,  —  alone 
here,  alone  at  the  judgment,  alone  forever.  Each 
sins  alone,  is  judged  alone,  is  saved  or  lost  alone. 
The  solitude  in  which  every  man  dies  is  an  em- 
blem of  the  individuality  of  his  being  forever. 

It  is  also  the  way  of  God  to  save  men  when  to 
human  view  their  salvation  is  incredible.  lie  de- 
lights in  njiraclcs  of  grace.  The  early  disciples 
could  not  believe  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  con- 
verted. It  is  not  recorded  that  they  had  ever 
prayetl  for  his  conversion.  That  was  the  quickest 
way  of  puttmg  an  end  to  his  persecution  of  them  ; 
but  it  does  not  appear  that  they  ever  thought  of 
it.  But  God  was  beforehand  with  them.  Saul, 
before  they  knew  it,  was  praying  for  them.  God 
loves  such  paradoxes  of  grace.  Un^vritten  biog- 
raphy is  full  of  them. 

True,  it  is  a  gieat  blessing  to  have  been  born  in 
the  line  of  a  godly  ancestry.  But  it  is  a  greater 
blessing  to  have  been  born  at  all,  under  the  grace 
of  God,  in  a  Christian  land,  amidst  sabbaths, 
Bibles,  churches,  and  under  the  gracious  provi- 
dences of  God.  Some  of  the  best  of  men  have 
been  illustrations  of  divine  grace  to  the  worst. 
What  of  heathen  converts  to  Christianity? 
Heaven  is  already  becoming   populous  with   the 


THE   GODLY  SON"  OF   AN   UNGODLY   FATHER.   115 

childi'eu  of  idolaters,  liars,  cli'uukards,  thieves, 
adulterers,  murderers.  Go  back  far  enough  in  the 
ancestral  line  of  any  of  us,  and  we  come  to  a 
generation  of  cannibals.  What  but  the  love  of 
God  firat  took  off  that  ancestral  curse  ? 

3.  The  upright  character  of  Hezekiah  illustrates 
also  that  the  conversioti  of  men  is  often  assisted  by 
their  natural  recoil  from  extreme  wickedness.  Tlie 
young  monarch  must  have  come  to  the  throne  in 
a  state  of  disgust  with  his  father's  crimes.  He 
must  have  felt  the  dishonor  of  thera  to  the  royal 
name.  He  must  have  seen  the  ^v^etched  condition 
of  the  kingdom  on  account  of  them.  Ilis  subse- 
quent life  shows  that  as  a  young  man  he  must  have 
been  thoughtful  and  of  tender  conscience.  He 
was  just  the  man  to  blush  for  his  father's  disgrace, 
and  to  recoil  with  a  young  man's  pride  from  his 
country's  shame.  This  class  of  influences,  under 
the  grace  of  God,  may  have  been  the  means  of  his 
salvation.  It  is  noticeable  that  his  reform  was 
begun  instantly  on  liis  accession  to  the  kingdom. 
He  lost  no  time.  He  was  evidently  prepared  for 
his  work  by  previous  thought  and  resolution. 

This  is  one  of  the  benevolent  devices  of  God 
for  the  defeat  of  sin.  Sin  is  often  so  used  as  to 
defeat  itself.  One  of  the  reasons  why  it  is  per- 
mitted to  run  its  course,  and  come  to  a  head,  is 
that  men  may  see  it  in  its  liideous  matiuity.  Only 
thus  can  we  know  it  as  it  is.  The  delay  of  God 
in  its  punishment  may  be  often  due  to  this  law. 
And  it  often  works  to  the  salvation  of  souls. 


116  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Even  irreligious  men  are  shocked  by  wickedness 
whicli  exceeds  their  own.  A  3'oung  man's  first 
knowledge  of  the  world,  wlien  he  goes  out  from 
the  innocence  of  his  childhood's  home,  often  pro- 
duces a  recoil  from  the  world's  depravity.  He 
did  not  know  before  that  sin  was  so  vile  a  thing. 
He  starts  back  from  it,  and  begins  to  feel  his  need 
of  prayer.  Not  long  ago  a  young  man  who  had 
just  entered  college  wrote  home  to  his  father,  say- 
ing, "I  did  not  know  how  wicked  young  men 
could  ])e  till  I  came  here.  I  shall  not  get  through 
without  a  wreck  unless  I  commit  myself  as  a 
follower  of  Christ."  From  that  time  he  conse- 
crated his  life  to  God.  God  used  the  very  enor- 
mities of  sin  to  save  him  from  sin. 

So  the  child  of  vicious  parents  is  often  saved 
from  vice  by  his  early  knowledge  of  vice.  Many 
a  drunkard's  child  has  never  tasted  a  drop  of  in- 
toxicating drink.  The  Holy  Spii-it  is  ingenious  in 
devising  ways  of  alluring  men  to  heaven.  He 
draws  men  in  backward  in  their  recoil  from  hell. 
He  uses  sin  to  defeat  sin.  When  a  prairie  is  on 
fire,  and  the  traveller  is  in  danger  of  being  sur- 
rounded and  suflbcated  by  the  roaring  flame,  he 
has  a  way  of  fighting  fire  with  fire.  So  the  Spuit 
of  God  sets  guilt  against  guilt.  Temptation  is 
checkmated  by  the  very  ghastliness  of  the  crime 
which  it  proposes. 

The  young  should  cherish,  then,  as  for  dear  life, 
their  first  revolt  of  conscience  from  abounding  sin. 


THE  GODLY  SON  OF  AN  UNGODLY  FATHER.  117 

The  sensitiveness  of  a  soul  not  yet  inured  to  vice 
is  the  guard  which  God  has  given  for  its  protec- 
tion. The  backward  spring  fi-om  mature  depravity 
is"  a  token  of  moral  health :  it  may  be  the  prelude 
to  the  soul's  conversion. 

Charles  IX.  of  France,  in  his  youth,  had  humane 
and  tender  sensibilities.  The  fiend  wlio  tempted 
him  was  the  mother  who  had  nursed  him.  When 
she  fir^t  proposed  to  him  the  massacre  of  the  Hu- 
guenots, he  shrunk  from  it  with  horror :  "  No,  no, 
madam  !  they  are  my  loving  subjects."  Then  was 
the  critical  hour  of  his  life.  Had  he  cherished  that 
natural  sensitiveness  to  bloodshed,  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's Eve  would  never  have  disgraced  the  history 
of  his  kingdom,  and  he  himself  would  have  escaped 
the  fearful  remorse  which  crazed  him  on  liis  death- 
bed. To  his  physician  he  said  in  his  last  hours, 
"  Asleep  or  awake,  I  see  the  mangled  forms  of  the 
Huguenots  passing  before  me.  They  drip  with 
blood.  They  make  hideous  faces  at  me.  They 
point  to  their  open  wounds,  and  mock  me.  Oh 
that  I  had  spared  at  least  the  little  infants  at  the 
breast ! "  Then  he  broke  out  in  agonizing  cries 
and  screams.  Bloody  sweat  oozed  from  the  pores 
of  his  skin.  He  was  one  of  the  very  few  cases  in 
history  wliich  confirm  the  x^ossibility  of  the  phe- 
nomenon wliich  attended  our  Lord's  anguish  in 
Gethsemane.  That  was  the  fruit  of  resisting, 
years  before,  the  recoil  of  his  youthful  conscience 
from  the  extreme  of  guilt. 


118  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^OIENT. 

Our  Eiis-lish  word  "remorse"  comes  from  a 
Latin  word  which  means  "  to  bite  back."  Tender 
sensibilities  trampled  on  in  our  youth  grow  rabid, 
like  canine  madness,  and  "bite  back"  upon  the 
offender  with  a  malignant  venom  which  has  no 
remedy. 

4.  The  narrative  before  us  illustrates  the  fact 
tliat  when  God  converts  men  from  amidst  surround- 
ings of  fjreat  depravity^  he  often  has  some  great  and 
signal  xervice  for  them  to  do  for  him.  Such  was  the 
case  with  King  Hczekiah.  God  suntmoned  him  to 
the  reformation  of  a  kingdom.  He  trained  him 
for  it  by  permitting  him  to  see  the  guilt  and  the 
ruin  of  his  father's  reign.  When  the  critical  time 
came,  he  lifted  him  out  of  the  slough  of  iniquity, 
and  made  him  one  of  the  signal  examples  of  a 
godly  prince,  whose  name  should  give  lustre  to 
the  Jewish  throne  forever  after. 

Thus  God  often  works  in  humbler  life.  One  of 
the  most  successful  clergymen  in  the  history  of  the 
New-England  pulpit  was  the  son  of  a  drunkard 
and  a  thief.  His  youth  was  spent  in  extreme  pov- 
erty and  disgrace.  The  family  name  was  a  by- 
word. When  he  resolved  to  work  his  way  to 
college  and  to  the  pulpit,  his  father  overwhelmed 
him  with  parental  curses.  In  that  man's  boyhood, 
his  rum  for  this  world  and  the  next  seemed  to 
human  view  well-nigh  certain.  "  Like  father,  like 
son,"  said  his  neighbors.  But  God  had  other  plans 
for  the  unfortunate  youth.     That  masterly  pulpit 


THE  GODLY   SON   OF   AN   UNGODLY   FATHER.    119 

was  preparing  for  him,  and  he  preparing  for  it. 
The  earthly  father's  curses  and  the  heavenly  Fa- 
ther's blessing  were  pitted  against  each  other. 
God  brought  him  safely  through  those  fires  of 
Moloch.  He  called  him  to  stand  in  a  place  more 
honorable  than  the  courts  of  kings.  He  became 
greatly  successful  in  revivals  of  religion.  Before 
his  death,  more  than  twelve  hundred  persons  were 
known  to  him  who  attributed  their  conversion  to 
his  ministry. 

God  knows  where  to  find  liis  chosen  ones.  He 
sees  them  from  afar.  Tliey  may  be  born  in  dens 
of  vice,  and  nurtured  in  almshouses  and  attics  and 
cellars.  But  He  who  was  born  in  a  manger  has 
his  eye  upon  them ;  and  he  brings  their  feet  out 
into  a  large  place.  They  stand  at  last  before 
kings.  Their  usefulness  in  the  end  is  propor- 
tioned to  the  lowliness  and  the  peril  of  theu'  be- 
ginning. A  popular  writer  of  our  own  day  says 
that  it  takes  three  generations  to  create  a  gentle- 
man. It  takes  not  half  of  one  to  create  a  king  who 
shall  reign  with  Christ  a  thousand  years. 

5.  The  work  of  King  Hezekiah  illustrates  the 
moral  poioer  of  one  man  in  effectinr/  a  great  work  to 
which  God  has  called  him.  From  the  narrative  in 
the  lesson  it  appears  that  the  reformation  of  the 
kingdom  was  at  first  the  idea  of  Hezekiah  alone. 
"■  It  is  in  my  heart,"  he  says,  "  to  make  a  covenant 
with  the  Lord."  Nobody  seems  to  have  put  him 
up  to  it.     No  prophet  came  to  warn  or  to  stimulate 


120  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT, 

liiiii.  The  movement  grew  up  silently  in  his  own 
heart.  God  and  he  planned  it  alone.  Prol)al)ly 
he  had  been  brooding  over  it  and  praying  over  it 
for  years.  Men  <lii  not  s[)ring  into  such  honor  at 
a  bound.  At  last  he  was  the  soul  of  tlie  reform. 
The  idea  was  his ;  the  measures  were  his  ;  the  ex- 
ecution was  his. 

So  it  often  is  in  other  great  works  of  God. 
Some  one  man  heads  it ;  puts  his  soul  into  it ; 
gives  his  life  to  it;  rouses  other  men,  and  energizes 
them  in  it.  There  is  almost  no  limit  to  the  power 
of  a  live  man  called  of  God  to  a  great  life's  work. 
Other  men  fall  back  to  the  right  and  to  the  left, 
and  let  such  a  man  go  up  the  highway  of  the  King, 
while  they  fall  iu  at  the  rear,  and  acknowledge  his 
lead. 

In  almost  every  group  of  Christian  workers, 
some  one  such  man  is  the  confessed  leader ;  not 
the  man  that  seeks  leadership,  but  the  man  whom 
leadership  seeks.  Not  great  men  and  kings  alone 
are  thus  exalted.  God  calls  them  from  lowly 
places  rather.  Not  many  noble  are  called.  The 
lives  of  such  men  as  William  Carey  and  Harlan 
Page  are  immortal  witnesses  to  what  one  man  can 
do,  if  he  is  roused  by  great  ideas,  filled  with  a 
great  faith,  endowed  with  a  great  soul,  inspired 
by  a  great  hope,  and  sets  himself  to  work  at  God's 
bidding  and  in  God's  way.  The  secret  leading  of 
such  men  by  the  teachings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
akin  to  inspiration.  They  never  lie  in  their  pro- 
posals, and  never  fail  in  their  achievements. 


THE  GODLY  SON  OF  AN  UNGODLY  FATHER.  121 

6.  The  work  of  King  Hezekiah  illustrates  also 
the  suddenneas  ivith  which  God  often  achieves  by  the 
hand  of  such  men  great  changes  in  the  progress  of  his 
kingdom.  Following  the  story  of  this  ancient  re- 
formation, we  learji  at  the  end  of  the  narrative  that 
"  Hezekiah  rejoiced,  and  all  the  people,  that  God 
had  prepared  the  people,  for  the  thing  was  done  sud- 
denlyy  It  was  an  instance  of  a  very  rapid  work 
of  grace.  Although  the  king  had  originated  the 
movement,  and  set  others  to  work  out  the  idea 
over  which  he  had  long  Ijrooded,  he  found  things 
ready  to  his  hand.  God  had  "prepared  the  peo- 
ple for  it."  They  had  been  reading  God's  provi- 
dence, as  well  as  he.  Secret  currents  of  feeling 
were  swelling  in  their  hearts.  All  that  they 
needed  was  a  leader.  When,  therefore,  the  leader 
appeared  in  the  person  of  their  youthful  prince, 
events  moved  quickly.  Results  ripened  fast. 
Before  they  had  time  to  dally  over  it,  the  thing 
was  done.  The  kingdom  was  righted,  and  brought 
once  more  into  line  in  the  service  of  the  living 
God. 

This  is  another  of  the  common  laws  of  God's 
working.  He  prepares  different  agencies  in  differ- 
ent channels  secretly.  Each  is  quietly  fitted  to 
another  by  unseen  strategy.  The  leader  is  is.^\\- 
ioned  for  the  people,  and  the  people  trained  for 
the  leader.  Unknown  to  each  other,  men  are  set 
to  thinking,  of  the  same  thing.  The  same  fire  is 
kindled   in  many  hearts;   the   same   resolves   are 


122  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT, 

created,  the  same  hopes  cherished.  Perhaps  no 
man  knows  the  heart  of  his  neighbor  in  the  tiling. 
Each  man  may  think  he  is  alone  in  it.  But  by 
and  by  the  time  comes  when  things  are  ripe  for 
a  disclosure  of  God's  plans.  The  leader  appears, 
and  unexpectedly  finds  that  he  has  a  large  follow- 
ing. The  people  rise,  and  suddenly  find  that  they 
have  a  born  leader.  Organization  is  easy.  Every- 
body seems  to  have  a  mind  for  the  work.  The 
result  is  a  great  and  sudden  growth  of  Christ's 
kingdom.  Revivals  of  religion  have  illustrated 
this  law  over  and  ovei:  again.  Tlie  history  of 
Christian  missions  is  fidl  of  it.  The  abolition  of 
American  slavery  illustrated  it.  How  we  used  to 
talk  and  pray  on  that  subject  twenty  years  ago ! 
We  thought  it  one  of  the  far-distant  events  in  our 
coming  history.  Centuries  hence,  in  some  golden 
age,  we  dreamed  that  some  happy  generation  of 
our  successors  would  arise,  who  would  devise 
some  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the  atrocious  sys- 
tem. Nobody  conceived  it  possible  that  the  end 
was  so  near,  and  would  come  so  suddenly.  But 
God  was  fitting  events  to  events,  and  men  to  men. 
Had  our  spiritual  senses  been  more  alert,  we 
should  have  heard  the  chariot-wheels  and  the 
tra^iping  of  steeds.  At  last,  when  he  was  ready, 
the  end  came  in  the  tmnkling  of  an  eye.  Such 
phenomena  suggest  the  possibility  that  the  conver- 
sion of  the  world  may  be  nearer  than  we  think. 


THE  GODLY  SON  OF  AN  UNGODLY  FATHER.  123 

Who  knows?  It  would  not  be  stranger  than 
some  things  which  God  has  done,  if  men  now 
livinsr  should  see  this  world  consecrated  to  Jesus 
Christ. 


THE  PRODIGAL   SON   OF    GODLY  PARENTS. 

And  wliPii  liewaa  in  aflliction.he  besouf:tlit  the  Lord  his  God, 
and  hunihlt'd  liimstlf  j^natly  iK'fore  tlie  God  of  his  fatlurs,  and 
prayed  unto  him;  and  he  was  entreated  of  liim,  and  hi-ard  his 
supplication,  and  hnnijilit  him  ajjain  to  Jt-nisal^^m  into  liis  king- 
dom. Tlicn  Manassfh  knew  that  the  Lord  he  was  God. — 2 
Ghbon.  xxxiii.  12,  13. 

FEW  principles  of  the  divine  government  are 
more  vital  to  religion  than  those  which  gov- 
ern the  transmission  of  tendencies  to  good  and  to 
e^'il  in  the  line  of  family  descent.  In  previous 
studies  we  have  seen  some  varieties  of  them.  We 
have  observed  a  son  fait hf id  to  the  example  of  a 
godly  father,  in  the  case  of  Jehoshaphat ;  a  son 
defying  that  example  to  the  death,  in  the  case  of 
Ahaz ;  and  the  son  of  a  most  impious  father  re- 
coiling to  the  service  of  God,  in  the  person  of 
Hezekiah. 

The  life  of  King  ]\Ianasseh  illustrates  another 
phase  of  the  working  of  those  principles.  The  re- 
markable distinction  of  liis  career  is,  that  he  is 
the  only  case  clearly  recorded  in  the  Scriptures,  of 
a  youth  breaking  away  from  the  restraints  and  ex- 
ample of  a  religious  parentage,  who  was  recovered 
by  the  grace  of  God,  and  brought  to  repentance. 

124 


THE   PRODIGAL   SON   OF   GODLY   PAEENTS.   125 

His  life  is  the  old  story,  —  sin,  cliastisement,  re- 
pentance, and  forgiveness.  "  He  did  evil  in  the* 
sight  of  the  Lord;  he  made  Judah  to  do  worse 
than  the  heathen ; "  "  Wherefore  the  Lord  brought 
upon  him  the  host  of  Ass}rria,  which  bound  him  in 
fetters,  and  carried  him  to  Babylon;"  "And  when 
he  was  in  aflliction,  he  humbled  himself  greatly 
before  the  God  of  his  fathers;"  "And  he  was 
entreated  of  him,  and  heard  his  supplication ; " 
"Then  ]\Ianasseh  knew  that  the  Lord  he  was 
God."  Guilt,  suffering,  penitence,  pardon.  The 
story  of  JudaJi's  prince  is  the  story  of  to-day. 
Twenty-five  hundred  years  have  not  changed  its 
tenjor,  nor  relaxed  the  principles  of  God's  gov- 
ernment wliich  it  illustrates. 

1.  It  deserves  to  be  noticed,  that  the  fall  of 
Manasseh  teas  an  exception  to  the  general  law  respect- 
ing the  history  of  children  of  a  godly  parentage. 
The  charge  has  been  exultiiigly  used  against  the 
credit  of  religion,  tliat  the  sons  of  Christian  fathers 
are  generally  worse  than  others.  The  sons  of 
bishops  and  clergj'men  and  deacons  and  elders  are 
often  said  to  be  proverbially  wicked.  The  re- 
straints of  a  religious  home  are  sometimes  criticised 
as  tending  by  re-action  to  the  extremes  of  vice. 
This  assertion  is  not  true  historically.  Statistics 
disprove  it. 

In  a  certain  New-England  town  of  some  thou- 
sands of  people,  the  records  of  the  Christian  fami- 
lies were  once  examined  thoroughly  to  test  this 


126  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAZVIE^T. 

question.  I  am  unable  to  recall  the  exact  num- 
bers ;  Init  the  proportion  of  the  children  of  such 
families  who  became  religious  men  and  women, 
as  related  to  those  who  did  not,  was  more  than 
five  to  one.  Three  or  four  such  investigations 
have  come  within  my  knowledge,  all  ending  in 
a  similar  result.  In  the  Theological  Seminary 
at  Andover,  some  years  ago,  it  was  found,  on  in- 
quiry, that  out  of  its  hundred  and  twenty  students 
preparing  for  the  ministry  of  the  gospel,  more  than 
the  hundred  were  from  Christian  homes,  and 
more  than  twelve  were  sons  of  Christian  ministers. 
A  similar  iiKpiiry,  with  similar  results,  was  once 
instituted  in  Amherst  College.  Had  the  common 
proverb  on  the  subject  been  true,  no  such  propor- 
tions as  these  would  have  been  at  all  probable. 
The  reverse  should  be  the  law:  the  Church  should 
look  for  her  clergy  to  families  in  which  children 
have  not  the  misfortune  of  religious  restraints  to 
lay  the  foundation  for  profane  re-actions. 

The  design  of  God  in  the  constitution  of  the 
Christian  family  is  to  make  it  the  fountain  of 
all  virtues,  the  very  citadel  of  religion,  and  the 
nursery  of  the  Church.  The  Church  itself  is  but 
the  family  on  an  extended  scale.  In  the  long-run, 
and  as  a  general  rule,  it  works  as  God  intended 
that  it  should  work.  The  covenant  of  God  with 
faithful  parents  is  not  dishonored.  The  Church 
owes  to  it  a  very  large  portion  of  her  membership, 
and  many  of  the  most  brilliant  ornaments  of  her 


THE   PRODIGAL   SON  OF   GODLY   PARENTS.     127 

pulpits.  It  is  a  fact  which  children  in  Cliristian 
households  should  ponder  seriously,  that,  if  they 
do  break  loose  from  the  restraints  of  their  reli- 
gious training,  they  become  exceptional  cases  of  sin 
against  exceptional  privilege. 

2.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  \\iiich  the 
early  manhood  of  INIanasseh  also  illustrates,  that^ 
when  th,e  children  of  the  good  become  vicious^  they  do 
become  worse  than  the  average  of  ivickcd  men.  The 
brief  records  of  iNIanasseh's  reign  clearly  hint 
this.  He  fell  back  to  the  disgraceful  level  of  his 
grandfather  ^Vhnz.  The  catalogue  of  his  crimes 
is  fearful.  "  lie  made  Judah  to  do  worse  than 
the  heathen,""  says  the  historian.  He  practised 
sorcery  and  necromancy,  and  restored  the  furnace 
to  Tophet.  He  worshipped  the  stars.  He  sacri- 
ficed his  own  children  to  pagan  deities.  He  named 
his  son  Amon  after  an  Egyptian  idol.  He  was  the 
first  persecutor  in  Judah  of  the  true  religion.  He 
removed  the  ark  out  of  the  holy  of  holies.  Tra- 
dition says  that  the  name  of  Jehovah  was  erased 
from  all  public  documents  and  inscriptions.  His 
reign  was  a  "reign  of  terror  "  to  the  prophets  of 
the  i\Iost  High.  The  secular  historian  says  that 
"  day  by  day  a  fresh  batch  of  the  prophetic  order 
were  ordered  to  execution.  From  end  to  end  of 
Jerusalem  were  to  be  seen  traces  of  their  blood." 
Tradition  says  that  the  prophet  Isaiah,  nearly 
ninety  years  of  age,  perished  by  Manasseh's  order. 
Yet  the  same  tradition  declares  that  his  mother 


128  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

was  Isaiah's  daughter.  IIu  was  one  of  the  three 
kings  who  in  Jewish  story  had  no  part  in  the 
life  to  come,  —  Jeroboam,  Ahab,  Manasseh.  His 
name  became  in  Jewish  annals  the  synonyme  of 
infamy. 

This  is  an  obviously  natural  working  of  things. 
A  steel  spring  will  recoil  one  way  with  a  force 
proi)ortioned  to  the  power  with  which  it  has  been 
bent  the  other  way.  A  cannon-ball  (.bopped  fr^m 
the  summit  of  a  shot-tower  redujilicates  its  velo- 
city as  it  descends,  and  it  strikes  the  earth  with  a 
concussion  proportioned  to  the  height  of  the  tower. 
Shuilar  is  the  law  of  character.  Both  virtue  and 
depravity  are  in  exact  ratio  to  the  resistance  over- 
come. 

The  child  of  godly  parentage  therefore,  if  he 
becomes  an  outcast,  does  fall  lower  than  the  aver- 
age of  outcasts.  In  the  natural  course  of  things 
he  becomes  a  more  hardened  sinner  in  the  sight  of 
God.  His  conscience  suffers  a  more  fatal  violence. 
His  subsequent  conversion  is  less  probable.  Such 
is  the  law  of  natural  progress  in  the  evolution  of 
character.  This  doubtless  is  the  foundation  of  the 
proverb  that  the  sons  of  ministers  and  elders  and 
deacons  generally  become  monuments  of  superla- 
tive vice.  When  they  do  so,  they  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  observers  by  the  very  extreme  of  their 
wickedness  and  its  contrast  to  the  homes  of  then- 
cliildhood.  The  child  of  godly  progenitors  can- 
not   tamper  witli    temptation  without   incurring 


THE  PRODIGAL  SON  OF  GODLY  PARENTS.  129 

greater  peril  of  the  loss  of  the  soul  tluiii  that  in- 
curred by  other  men.  Exalted  to  heaven  in  privi- 
lege,—  thrust  down  to  hell  in  guilt:  such  is  the 
contrast  as  the  Bible  paints  it. 

3.  The  fall  of  Manasseh  illustrates  a  mysterious 
but  undoubted  fact  respecting  the  law  of  heredi- 
tary descent  as  affecting  character.  It  is  that  the 
virus  of  an  evil  parentaye^  when  arrested  in  one  gen- 
eration^ may  pass  over,  and  re-appear  in  the  genera- 
tion folloiving.  This  youthful  prince  was  the  son 
of  Ilezekiah,  one  of  the  best  of  Judiean  monarchs, 
but  the  grandson  of  Ahaz,  one  of  the  worst. 

Physicians  tell  us  that  there  are  certain  heredi- 
tary diseases  of  which  the  inheritance  is  often 
intermittent.  One  generation  may  escape  their 
fatal  fangs,  but  they  may  appear  in  all  their  \dru- 
lence  in  the  generation  next  succeeding.  Similar 
is  the  mystery  of  spiritual  inheritance.  The  un- 
written history  of  families  discloses  the  fact  that 
sometimes  the  Christian  son  of  an  ungodly  father 
had  a  most  devout  grandmother,  whose  prayers 
seem  to  be  answered  in  his  conversion.  Her  god- 
ly virtues  seem  to  hold  over,  and  re-appear  in  the 
persons  of  her  grandchikb'en. 

By  the  same  law,  a  vicious  son  of  a  Christian 
father  vdW  sometimes  be  found  to  have  sprung 
from  a  more  vicious  grandfather.  The  evil  blood 
descends,  like  a  subterranean  rivulet,  through  the 
person  of  his  own  son,  and  comes  to  the  surface 
again  in  the  evil  tendencies  of  the  grandson.     I 


130  STITDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

would  not  probe  irreverently  nor  to  fanciful  re- 
sults the  mysteries  of  God's  procedures.  But 
these  are  facta  sometimes  seen  in  the  character  of 
the  linked  generations.  God  has  deemed  the  prin- 
ciple they  involve  of  sufficient  importance  to  be 
affirmed  imperatively  in  the  third  commandment 
of  the  Decalogue.  King  Manasseh's  fall,  there- 
fore, is  to  the  point.  Evil  is  tenacious  of  life.  It 
intertwines  itself  around  the  roots  of  character. 
Tendencies  to  it,  once  created,  run  in  the  blood. 
We  all  suffer  the  ciu'se  of  it  from  the  fall  of 
Adam.  Not  to  the  destruction  or  the  lessening 
of  individual  responsibility  —  no,  not  by  a  hair- 
breadth. Hut  it  affects  visibly  the  conditions  of 
probation. 

The  old  English  preachers  used  to  make  much 
of  this  law  of  the  divine  government.  Moral  in- 
lieritance  was  to  them  a  most  stupendous  and 
practical  fact.  Jeremy  Taylor  has  somewhere 
recorded  a  prayer  that  God  will  purify  the  inher- 
ited fountain  of  evil  in  the  soul,  and  turn  back 
the  current  from  rolling  downward  from  the  father 
to  the  son.  To  a  thoughtful  man,  not  unobserv- 
ant of  the  ways  of  God,  this  is  a  most  appro- 
priate theme  of  secret  prayer.  If  I  am  conscious 
of  corrupt  tendencies  which  have  been  a  tempta- 
tion to  me  all  my  life,  ami  which  I  know  to  have 
been  felt  and  lamented,  or  perhaps  not  lamented, 
in  the  lives  of  my  progenitors,  why  should  I  not 
pray,  with  the  fervor  of  a  father's  solicitude  for 


THE   PRODIGAL   SON   OF   GODLY   PARENTS.     131 

the  salvation  of  liis  f)ffsprinrr,  that  the  accursed 
current  may  stop  with  me  ?  that  by  the  grace  of 
God  it  may  not  pass  on,  and  deluge  with  tempta- 
tion the  lives  and  souls  of  my  children  ? 

There  are  rivers  which  come  down  from  the  sum- 
mit of  Oriental  mountains  swollen  with  freshets, 
and  destructive  to  the  tillage  and  pasturage  of  the 
valleys ;  l)ut,  as  the}-  approach  the  sea,  they  are 
absorbed  and  lost  in  the  sands  of  the  desert.  So 
may  ^^ne  pray  that  inherited  proclivities  to  sin,  to 
vice  it  may  be,  may  be  arrested  in  their  cursed 
How,  and  be  lost  forever  from  the  line  of  the  fam- 
ily in  which  we  form  a  link,  and  are  ap[)ointed  to 
work  out  other  destinies  than  our  own.  Every 
Christian  parent  may  well  pray,  "Lord,  visit  not 
my  sins  and  the  sins  of  my  fathers  upon  the  chil- 
dren of  the  tliird  and  the  fourth  generations !  " 

4.  The  fall  of  tliis  young  monarch  illustrates 
the  power  of  hi</h  station  and  icorldhj  prosperity  to 
counteract  the  influence  of  a  religious  education. 
Manasseh  had  all  that  youthful  ambition  could 
desire,  to  make  liim  in  love  with  the  world.  His 
childhood  was  spent  in  anticipation  of  the  most 
splendid  position  in  the  kingdom.  He  was  heir  to 
wealth  and  dignity  and  the  alliances  of  kings. 
Courtiers  flattered  liim.  Young  men  felt  them- 
selves honored  by  liis  friendship.  Old  men  did 
him  reverence  as  their  future  sovereiofn.  The 
temptation  overwhelmed  him,  and  he  fell  before 
it. 


132  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

When  the  sons  of  godly  parents  go  astray,  it  is 
found,  more  frequently  than  otherwise,  that  they 
fall  before  the  enticements  created  by  their  fa- 
thers' wealth,  and  the  ease  and  luxury  with  which 
wealtli  surrounds  them.  I  ask  the  i)rincipal  of  a 
large  academy,  what  is  tiie  chief  cause  of  the  ruin 
of  boys  from  religious  homes;  and  he  answers  with- 
out a  moment's  hesitation,  "Too  much  money."  I 
ask  the  president  of  one  of  the  largest  colleges 
in  New  England,  what  is  the  sures^  protection  to 
young  men  against  the  perils  of  college  life ;  tuid 
he  responds,  "Poverty." 

We  know  not  what  we  ask  when  we  pray  for 
riches  and  worldly  eminence  for  our  children. 
Such  j)rayers,  answered  as  we  wish,  might  just 
nullify  our  care  for  their  religious  culture,  and 
make  them  the  sorrow  of  our  old  age.  Many  a 
Christian  father  goes  down  to  the  grave,  gray  be- 
fore his  time,  mourning  over  the  vices  of  children 
whose  fall  is  due  to  the  riches  he  has  hoarded  for 
them,  and  the  social  companionship  to  which  it 
has  been  the  ambition  of  his  life  to  lift  them. 
Many  of  us  have  3'et  to  learn  to  live  for  our  chil- 
dren on  principles  which  recognize  our  own  faith 
in  the  littleness  of  time  and  the  magnitude  of 
eternity. 

5.  The  misfortunes  which  followed  the  apostasy 
of  Manasseh  illustrate  the  faithfulness  of  God  to 
his  covenant  with  godly  parents.  It  is  noticeable 
that  the   chastisements  inflicted  upon  the  young 


THE   PliODIGAL   SON   OF   GODLY   PARENTS.     133 

king  were  very  severe.  A  tremendous  downfall  is 
that  whicli  precipitates  a  king  from  his  throne  to  the 
dungeon  of  a  foreign  enemy.  Few  of  the  princes 
of  Judah  suffered  that.  But  this  one  had  been 
exceptionally  wicked :  it  must  needs  be,  therefore, 
that  lie  be  exceptionally  eliastised. 

We  are  told,  too,  that  in  his  captivity  "  he 
humbled  himself  greatly.'"  A  certain  proportion 
runs  through  his  history.  A  great  sinner,  a  great 
sufferei',  a  great  penitent.  God  works  thoroughly. 
He  is  faithful  in  adjusting  the  discipline  to  the 
exigency.  Whom  he  loves,  he  chastens  propor- 
tionately to  his  necessities.  He  spares  not  the  rod 
at  the  expense  of  the  child's  soul.  He  plans  for 
eternity,  not  for  time.  So  would  we  have  it  — 
would  we  not?  —  in  the  experience  of  our  chil- 
dren. 

Often  is  this  experience  repeated  in  common  life, 
whether  our  weak  souls  would  so  have  it  or  not. 
God  is  faithful  bej'ond  our  desires.  Like  other 
Avise  fathers,  h'e  adjusts  his  dealings  to  the  future 
judgment  and  desii-es  of  his  children.  He  trusts 
to  eternity  for  his  justification  in  our  sight.  The 
praA'ers  of  the  Christian  father  and  mother  for  the 
wayward  son  are  answered  in  waves  and  billows 
of  affliction  often,  till  the  prodigal  comes  back,  and 
humbles  himself  greatly^  and  sa}'s,  "  I  have  sinned 
against  my  father  and  m}'  father's  God." 

If  a  star  in  our  evening  sky  should  stray  from 
its  orbit,  it  could  not  go  beyond  the  reach  of  those 


134  RTUDIKS   OF   TTIK   OT-D    TESTAMENT. 

laws  of  iiiattcr  and  ini)li(»ii  wliiili  liave  governed  it 
from  its  birth.  (Jravitatioii  would  still  hold  it,  as 
in  grooves  of  iron  which  the  ages  could  not  wear 
away.  Such  a  wandering  star  is  a  wayward  and 
ungodly  son  of  godly  parents.  An  outcast  thougli 
he  he,  the  sul)jcct  of  scalding  tears  and  despairing 
prayers,  yet  from  tliose  prayers  he  can  never  get 
loose.  For  vears  and  years  they  will  hoM  him 
within  the  circuit  of  salvation.  They  will  foHow 
him  hcyond  the  seas.  Into  the  p^ost  loathsome 
dens  of  vice  they  will  i)ursue  and  surround  him  as 
with  a  wall  of  fire.  To  the  demons  of  temptati<m 
they  are  a  voice  of  deliance  and  of  challenge,  say- 
ing, "  Ye  shall  not  have  this  child  of  mine  :  so  help 
me  God ! " 

And  often  God  is  in  the  voice.  I  have  heard  a 
Christian  mother  of  an  outcast  son  say,  "  I  know 
that  my  boy  will  yet  be  converted  to  Jesus  Christ. 
It  has  been  told  to  me  in  my  hours  of  agonizing 
prayer.  I  have  given  him  to  God.  He  is  no  longer 
mine.  I  may  not  live  to  see  it ;  but  God  will  take 
care  of  the  treasure  I  have  committed  to  his  keep- 
ing. I  shall  see  my  son  in  heaven."  Who  sliall 
dare  to  say  nay  to  such  a  trusting  woman  ?  It  is 
just  like  God  to  do  such  sovereign  things. 

6.  The  salvation  of  this  penitent  prince  should 
be  both  an  encouragement  and  a  warnhvj  to  those  sons 
of  Christian  parents  who  have  lost  the  paths  of  virtue. 
Often  is  it  said  of  the  penitent  tliief  on  the  cross, 
that  one  such  case  is  recorded  in  the  Scriptures, 


THE   PRODIG^U^   SON   OP   GODLY   PARENTS.     185 

that  none  may  despair  of  repentance  on  a  death- 
bed ;  and  hut  one,  that  none  may  presume. 

Similar  is  the  twofold  lesson  to  be  learned  from 
the  recovery  of  this  fallen  monarch.  He  tried  tlie 
fearful  experiment  of  abandoning  the  God  of  liis 
fatlicrs,  and  becoming  a  monument  of  illustrious 
guilt.  Through  bitter  disappointment  and  humil- 
iating sorrow,  he  was  .saved.  The  Scriptures  ex- 
pressly contradict  the  Jewish  tradition.  But  he 
was  one  of  a  thcnisand.  No  other  such  is  clearly 
dcilared  in  the  Scriptures  to  liave  run  tliat  ri:;k 
with  safety  at  the  last.  Cuul  ran  save  a  soul  in 
such  an  extremity  of  sui ;  but  it  is  like  lifting  to 
its  place  again  a  fallen  star.  Fallen  stars  generally 
JTO  out  in  darkness. 

That  is  an  exceptional  Iiazard  whieh  a  young 
man  incurs  in  such  an  experience.  It  is  like  cross- 
ing Niagara  over  the  rapids,  on  a  tight-rope.  One 
Blondin  out  of  forty  millions  may  have  done  it, 
and  reached  the  hither  shore  in  safety ;  but  would 
you  or  I  risk  it  for  that?  The  general  law  of 
God's  dealings  with  men  is  that  strange  and  un- 
natural wickedness  shall  be  left  to  itself  to  work 
out  its  own  penalties.  This  it  tlid  in  the  case  of 
King  Ahaz. 

Place  these  two  royal  sinners  side  by  side. 
Both  had  the  example  and  teachings  and  prayers 
of  godly  parents.  Both  broke  loose  from  these 
restraints,  and  ran  a  career  of  wild  and  defiant 
crime.     One  was  saved,  the  other  lost ;  one  taken, 


13G  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

the  other  left.  Wliy  thr  (lifftience  we  know  not. 
It  is  the  way  of  (Jod  to  do  autocratic  things.  IJut 
woe  to  liini  who  presumes  upon  God's  regal  mercy, 
to  defy  his  laws  and  trample  on  his  grace !  The 
l)r()bal)ilities  are  incalculably  great  that  he  will 
be  left  to  his  own  chosen  way,  and  to  mourn  at 
last, — 

"  The  Lliorus  which  I  have  reaped  are  of  the  tree  I  planted." 


TIIE  TWIN   SERPENTS. 

And  Cain  talked  \Yitli  Wn-\  his  lirotlar:  and  it  camo  to  pass, 
wIrii  tliey  were-  in  tlie  lit-ld,  that  Cain  rose  up  against  Alxl  his 
brother,  and  slow  him.  And  the  Lonl  said  unto  Cain,  Where 
is  At)el  tliy  lirofhiT?  And  he  said,  I  know  ntit :  am  I  my  broth- 
er's keiiHT?  And  lie  sai<l.  What  hiist  tlmu  done?  The  voice 
of  thy  brother's  blooil  crietli  unto  me  froTu  the  ground.  And 
now  thou  art  eiirsed  from  the  earth,  which  hath  oin-ned  her 
mouth  to  receive  thy  brother's  bloi>d  from  thy  hand.  A  fugitive 
and  a  vagabond  shalt  thou  be  in  the  earth.  And  Cain  said  unto 
the  Lord,  My  punishment  is  greater  than  I  can  bear.  —  Gen.  iv. 
8-13. 

TTIE  story  of  Cain  is  the  story  of  all  ages.  Sin, 
suffering;  the  one  following  the  other  by  a 
law  fixed  and  imperative  like  that  by  which  pain 
agonizes  a  burning  hand.     A  living  poet  speaks  of 

"Tlie  coils 
Of  those  twin  serpents,  —  Sin  and  Suffering." 

So  far  as  the  narrative  informs  us,  the  suffering 
of  the  first  murderer  was  mental  suffering.  Dis- 
ease did  not  blast  liim  ;  chains  did  not  bind  him  ; 
the  mysterious  mark  on  his  forehead  was  not  a 
burning  brand.  He  went  his  way  like  other  men. 
lie  had  sons  and  daughters :  he  built  the  first  city 
known  in  history.     Tradition  &ays  that  he  founded 

137 


138  STUDIKS   OF  THE*  OLD   TESTAMKNT. 

many  cities,  and  became  the  head  of  a  great  em- 
pire*. Yet  Cain  "  U'e7it  oiU  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord.''  He  lived  a  life  of  conscious  curse.  The 
serpents  coiled  within.  Cursed  in  thought,  cursed 
in  feeling,  cursed  in  fears,  cursed  in  blasted  hopes, 
cursed  in  one  h»ng  despair:  such  was  life  to  the 
first  man  who  bore  the  fruit  of  the  first  matured 
and  rii)ened  sin.  And  such  will  be  the  life  of  the 
last  man  who  shall  go  out  from  the  j)resence  of 
the  Lord,  bearing  the  burden  of  a  ^finished  crime 
unrepented  of  and  unforgivtii. 

Sin  finds  in  thi'  t'eri/  voiuftitution  if  tJir  human 
wind  (he  luiiiiury  if  itn  oxen  retrihution.  Let  us 
note  some  of  tht'se  retributive  experiences  of  sin, 
as  ileveloped  in  the  eommon  life  of  men. 

1.  Thf  very  conxcioiumetts  of  ain  in  destructive  of  a 
ginnerx  peace.  The  consciousness  of  sin  is  itself 
snfferinfj-  "  J^in  revived,  and  I  die<I,"  is  the  testi- 
mony  «>f  St.  Paul.  And  this  is  the  testimony  of 
every  sinner  of  every  age.  Tlie  bare  conviction 
of  guilt  in  having  transgressed  the  law  of  God  is 
the  basis  of  the  keenest  anguish  a  man  ever  suffers 
in  this  world  or  any  other. 

We  are  so  made  that  it  cannot  be  otherwise. 
God  has  so  constituted  our  nature  that  no  man 
ever  yet  lived  who  felt  absolutely  no  emotion 
when  the  naked  fact  of  sin  was  laid  on  liis  con- 
science by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  held  there. 
That  fact  of  guilt,  to  a  soul  thus  compelled  to  face 
it,  is  like  a  live  coal  to  a  naked  eyeball. 


THE   TWIN   SERPENTS.  139 

Moreover,  the  worst  of  it  is  that  conscience,  if 
left  to  itself,  never  finds  an  adequate  remedy.  It 
never  teaches  a  sinner  how  he  may  gain  deliver- 
ance from  sin  or  suffering.  It  never  hints  to  him 
tlie  possibility  of  deliverance  from  cither.  That 
is  no  part  of  its  design.  The  design  of  conscience 
is  siini)ly  to  express  God's  law.  Therefore,  in  a 
sinner's  experienOe,  its  working  is  to  exi>ress  tlie 
evil  of  transgressing  that  law.  Its  legitimate 
work  is  to  pour  out  upon  a  sinner  burning  and 
indignant  accusations  of  guilt,  (»f  folly,  of  dis- 
honor, of  degradation,  of  moral  defilement,  of  of- 
fcnsiveness  to  the  lu)ly  universe,  and  of  exposure 
to  the  wrath  of  a  holy  God,  and  —  leave  them  there. 

2.  The  destructive  working  of  sin  in  a  sinner's 
experience  is  further  seen  in  the  fact  that  sin  tends 
to  develop  t<in.  Like  all  other  forms  of  character, 
sin  grows.  Never  for  an  hour  is  it  at  a  standstill. 
No  soul  can  live  in  eternal  infancy.  One  sin  be- 
irets  another  sin.  Nothing  else  in  nature  is  so 
l)rolific.  One  sin  roots  itself  in  the  soil  of  char- 
acter, and  spreads  itself  outward,  and  lifts  itself 
heavenward  defiantly.  Sin  penetrates  the  under- 
ground of  character,  and  forms  there  hidden  enor- 
mities and  unconscious  depths  of  passion.  A  man 
of  long  experience  in  sin  is  always  a  worse  man 
than  he  seems  to  himself  to  be.  The  day  of  judg- 
ment is  to  be  a  day  of  fearful  surprises  and  over- 
whelming revolutions  in  self-laiowledge. 

Sin  full-grown  defies  law  because  it  is  law ;  re- 


140  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

sists  restraint  because  it  is  restraint ;  contests  au- 
thority with  God  because  he  is  God.  Says  Cain, 
as  dei)icted  by  Lord  Byron  in  colloquy  with  Luci- 
fer, "-I  bend  to  neither  Ciod  ni»r  thoe."  Lord 
Byron  knenv  whereof  he  aflirnu'd.  This  is  the 
legitimate  heroism  of  sin. 

Sin  runs  to  passic^n  ;  i)assiC)n,  to  tumult  in  char- 
acter; and  a  tumultuous  character  tends  to  tem- 
pests and  explosions,  which  scorn  secrecies  and 
disguises.  Then  the  whole  man  q^inies  to  light. 
He  sees  himself,  and  others  see  liim,  as  he  is  in 
God's  sight.  Those  solcnni  imperatives  and  their 
awful  resitonses,  "Thou  shalt  not,"  —  "I  will,''  — 
"  Tliou  shalt,"  —  ••  I  will  not,"  —  make  up  then 
all  that  the  man  knows  of  intercourse  with  God. 
Thi.s  is  sin  in  the  ultimate  and  finished  type  of  it. 
Tluit  is  what  it  grows  to  in  every  sinner,  if  un- 
checked by  the  grace  of  God.  Every  man  unre- 
deemed becomes  a  (Umuou  in  eternity. 

3.  The  destructiveness  of  sin  is  still  further  seen 
ill  the  apprrhciision  of  its  diacovery^  with  u'hifh  the 
co7iscionxnes8  of  guUt  is  ahvays  more  or  less  pain- 
fully attended.  Our  souls  are  so  made  as  to  trem- 
ble at  the  thought  of  detection  in  wrong.  This  is 
often  quite  distinct  from  the  fear  of  other  suffering. 

A  burglar,  not  long  ago,  entered  and  rilled  the 
contents  of  an  unoccupied  dwelling  at  the  seaside. 
He  ransacked  the  rooms  from  attic  to  cellar,  and 
heaped  his  plunder  together  in  the  parlor.  There 
were  evidences  that  there  he  had  sat  down  to  rest. 


THE   TWIN   SERPENTS.  141 

perhaps  to  tliiiik.  On  a  bracket  in  the  corner 
stood  a  marble  bust  of  Guido's  "Ecce  Homo," 
Christ  crowned  with  thorns.  The  gnilty  man  had 
taken  it  in  his  hands,  and  examined  it.  It  bore 
the  marks  of  his  fingers.  But  he  liad  rephiced  it, 
and  turned  its  face  to  the  u'olU  as  if  he  would  not 
liave  even  the  cohi,  sightless  eyes  of  the  marble 
Saviour  look  upon  his  deed  of  infamy.  Be  it  so, 
or  not,  there  is  in  every  human  soul  an  instinct 
of  concealment  of  sin,  of  which  that  act  is  a 
truthful  eniblenn  The  instinct  of  hiding  clutches 
at  every  act  of  wrong-doing,  and  would  i»ury  it 
forever  from  the  vision  of  pure  eyes.  The  first 
act:of  the  first  sinner,  when  the  fact  of  sin  grew 
into  his  consciousness,  was  to  hide  himself  at  the 
sound  of  God's  voice  in  the  garden.  Never  till 
then  had  it  been  needful  that  God  should  ask, 
"  Where  art  thou?"  Thus  human  nature  antici- 
pated all  through  earth's  history  the  craving  for 
a  hiding-place.  Thus  it  foreshadowed  the  last 
prayer  of  the  last  sinner :  -  Rocks  and  moun- 
tains, fall  on  us,  and  hide  us  from  the  face  of  Him 
that  sitteth  on  the  throne  !  " 

But  what  is  the  effect  of  this  craving  for  con- 
cealment on  a  sinner's  life?  It  dooms  him  to 
moral  solitude.  It  shuts  him  into  the  society  of 
his  own  outraged  conscience.  He  must  bear  the 
torture  of  an  inevitable  Xemesis  alone.  That 
sometimes  goads  him  by  the  sheer  dread  of  detec- 
tion to  forestall  it  by  confession,  that  he  may  be 


142  STUDIES   OF   TIIE   OLD   TESTA3IENT. 

rid  of  the  torment  of  anticipating  it.  Do  not  the 
history  of  suicide  in  this  world,  and  the  records 
of  tribunals  of  Imman  justice,  confirm  this  work- 
ing of  the  law  of  conscience  ? 

These  bodies  of  ours  are  so  made  as  to  be  allies 
of  conscience  in  tliis  thing.  They  are  sometimes 
all  aglow  and  quivering  with  the  signs  by  which 
this  fear  of  detection  in  wrong  discloses  itself  to 
the  beholder.  An  eminent  jurist  in  England,  after 
long  jiractice  at  the  bar,  said  tha|;  he  was  awe- 
struck by  the  machinery  for  tlie  discovery  of  false- 
hood which  God  had  constructed  in  the  muscles  of 
the  human  countenance.  The  human  face,  he  said, 
was  the  most  honest  thing  he  had  ever  found  in 
man.  If  ever}*  tlnng  else  bore  the  mask  of  per- 
jury, he  said,  there  was  an  involuntary  muscle  in 
one  of  the  lips,  which  he  had  never  known  a  wit- 
ness to  be  able  to  control  in  the  act  of  giving  per- 
jured testimony.  The  labial  muscle,  true  to  the 
hand  of  Him  who  made  it,  would  start  and  vibrate 
at  the  tlirill  of  the  fear  of  detection,  in  the  soul 
which  crouched  at  bay  behind  it.  So  impossible 
is  it,  in  the  last  extremity,  for  a  guilty  being  to 
suppress  its  dread  of  discovery  as  a  distinct  and 
positive  source  of  suffering  in  the  experience  of 
sin. 

4.  Once  more,  the  destructiveness  of  sin  in  the 
experience  of  the  sinner  is  seen  in  the  foreboding]/ 
of  judicial  and  eternal  retribution  which  is  incident 
to  sin.     No  two  ideas  are  more  indissolubly  joined 


THE  TWIN   SEKPENTS.  143 


in  the  working  of  the  human  mind  than  these  two 
of  suffering  and  sin.  "Sin  —  suffering;  suffering 
—  sin."  To  a  logical  mind  it  is  inevitable  to  rea- 
son from  the  one  to  the  other,  even  to  the  tracery 
of  a  hair  in  the  proportion  of  effect  to  cause.  "  So 
much  sin,  so  much  suffering:"  this  is  law.  And 
again,  "  So  much  suffering,  so  much  sin : "  this  is 
law.  Think  what  we  may  of  it,  this  is  law.  Job's 
friends  wore  true  to  the  law  of  nature  in  this 
thing.  These  two  angels  of  despair  have  trodden 
the  ages  as  a  winepress.  It  is  the  natural  working 
of  an  honest  conscience,  unrelieved  by  the  grace 
of  God,  to  weld  these  two  tilings  together  in  the 
fort^l)odings  of  a  guilty  soul. 

Hence,  in  the  experience  of  sin,  it  is  sheer  na- 
ture to  anticipate  suffering.  And  eternal  sin  must 
involve  eternal  suffering :  this  is  nature.  Yes ; 
"  it  must  be  so :  thou  reasonest  well."  By  na- 
ture, as  well  as  by  revelation,  the  worm  dieth  not. 
It  is  not  superstition  to  fear  an  eternal  hell ;  it  is 
not  bigotry  to  believe  in  it  and  to  teach  it :  it  is 
simple  nature  acting  out  one  of  its  involuntary 
and  elementary  instincts.  The  heart's  throbbing 
is  not  more  natural.  A  fearful  looking-for  of 
judgment  is,  sooner  or  later,  in  the  order  of  nature, 
the  fruitage  of  all  sin. 

Besides,  the  human  conscience  finds  no  end  to 
it.  Once  a  sinner,  always  a  sinner :  this  is  nature. 
Therefore,  once  a  sinner,  always  a  sufferer  :  this, 
too,  is  nature.     Again  we  must  say,  think  what  we 


144  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJMENT. 

may  of  it,  this  is  law.  It  is  no  peculiarity  of  the 
Bible.  Priests  have  not  made  it  so.  The  Bible  is 
no  more  responsible  for  it  than  the  Koran.  It  is 
an  obstinate  fact  in  the  make  of  the  human  soul. 
It  declares  the  doom  of  any  and  every  soul,  if  left 
to  itself  to  drag  a  history  of  sin  behind  it. 

Consequently  man  the  world  over  trembles  at 
something.  Guilt  sooner  or  later  makes  us  all 
cowards.  We  are  naturally  afraid  of  God.  We 
dread  our  ow;i  immortality.  Who  ^nows  what  is 
to  come  of  it  /  We  are  afrai<l  of  deatli.  Who 
has  ever  got  an  answer  from  the  awful  silence 
beyond?  An  Englisli  general  of  unijuestioned 
courage  confessed  that  he  always  trembled  at  the 
first  boom  of  the  cannon  in  battle.  He  feared  it 
as  much  in  his  fiftieth  light  as  in  his  first.  Do  not 
such  moments  of  standing  eye  to  eye  with  death, 
and  trembling  at  the  booming  echoes  of  eternity, 
occur  in  the  lives  of  the  best  and  the  bravest  of 
us? 

But  why  ?  Why  should  a  man  fear  death  ?  A 
caterpillar  does  not  fear  the  chrysalis  through 
which  it  passes  to  a  thing  of  beauty.  Ah !  but  we 
are  not  butterflies.  We  are  souls.  We  are  images 
of  God.  Our  dread  of  death,  of  immortality,  of 
God,  is  the  hammer  of  a  deathless  conscience  fall- 
ing on  the  anvil  of  eternal  right,  with  the  power 
of  an  almighty  will  in  the  arm  that  \nelds  it. 
Woe  to  any  thing  that  lies  between  ! 

An  honest  conscience,  then,  can  never  point  a 


THE   TWIN   SERPENTS.  145 

man  to  himself  for  peace.  It  never  tells  him  to 
look  within  for  that.  It  shuts  him  in  to  his  de- 
spair, and  leaves  him  tliere.  This  is  all  that  na- 
ture can  do  for  him.  If  there  is  no  other  source 
of  hope,  he  "goes  out,"  like  Cain,  "from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Lord,"  to  return  no  mon*.  The  twin 
serpents  are  the  companions  of  his  solitude,  for- 
ever and  forever. 

From  this  review  of  the  working  of  sin  in  the 
experience  of  men,  two  things  become  obvious:  — 

It  is  reasonahle  that  a  siymcr  should  incpdre  anx- 
iumlt/,  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved?"  No  man 
has  any  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  anxiety  for  the 
salvation  of  his  soul. 

Equally  obvious  is  the  preciousness  of  the  ivork 
of  Christ.  Christ  becomes  a  reality  to  us,  only  by 
being  felt  to  be  a  necessity.  He  is  a  reality  only 
because  he  is  a  necessity.  Here  our  thouglit  should 
culminate,  —  in  the  preciousness  of  Christ  to  lost 
souls.  Yes,  lost !  No  other  one  word  expresses 
so  truthfully  the  condition  in  which  Christ  finds 
us  all.  Lost  to  virtue ;  lost  to  the  respect  and 
trust  of  the  holy  universe ;  lost  to  the  benignant 
operation  of  conscience ;  lost  to  self-respect,  to 
hope,  to  peace,  to  the  conscious  blessedness  of 
being ;  lost  to  the  complacent  love  of  God,  —  the 
past  all  guilt,  and  the  future  all  despair ! 

It  is  to  such  a  being,  to  a  crowded  and  forlorn 
world  of  such  beings,  that  Christ  gives  himself. 
He  gives  himself  to  blot  out  the  past.     Oh,  to 


146  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

blot  out  the  past !  We  know  little  of  ourselves 
if  our  experienee  liiis  not  taught  us  the  need 
of  that.  We  know  as  little  of  Christ's  work  for 
us,  if  we  have  not  experienced  the  reality  of  that. 
Yet  how  tame  is  language  to  express  that  expe- 
rience !  Are  there  not  hours  iu  which  we  can  only 
adore  in  grateful  silence  the  love  of  which  we  can- 
not speak?  If  we  would  speak,  do  we  not  fall 
back  upon  some  such  simple  speech  as  that  of 
those  lines  which  have  already  b^en  the  solace 
of  multitudes  on  death-beds,  — 

"Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea, 
Save  that  thy  blood  was  shed  for  me, 
Aiid  that  tlmu  bid'st  me  come  to  thee, 
O  Lamb  of  God,  I  cornel" 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF  RELIGION. 

After  this  did  Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  send  his  servants 
to  Jerusalem  (but  he  himself  laid  siege  against  Lacliish,  and  all 
his  power  with  him)  unto  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah,  and  unto  all 
Judah'  that  were  at  Jerusalem,  saying.  Thus  saith  Sennacherib, 
king  of  Assyria,  AYliereou  do  ye  trust,  that  ye  abide  in  the  si»!go 
in  Jerusalem?  Know  ye  not  what  I  and  ray  fathers  have  done 
unto  all  the  people  of  other  lands  ?  "Were  the  gods  of  the  nations 
of  those  lands  any  ways  able  to  deliver  their  lands  out  of  mine 
hand  ?  AVho  was  there  among  all  the  gods  of  those  nations  that 
my  fathers  utterly  destroyed,  that  could  deliver  his  jieople  out 
of  mine  hand,  that  your  God  should  be  able  to  deliver  you  out 
of  mine  hand?  And  his  servants  spake  yet  more  against  the 
Lord  God,  and  against  his  servant  Hezekiah.  — 2  Chbon.  xxxii. 
9,  10, 13, 14,  Hi. 

THE  enemies  of  religion  are  of  two  sorts.  The 
enmity  of  one  class  is  concealed  from  expres- 
sion in  words.  It  is  often  accompanied  with  pro- 
fessions of  respect.  It  is  covered  by  outward 
virtues.  It  may  not  be  distinctly  known  to  the 
conscience  of  the  man  himself.  The  enmity  of 
the  other  class  is  open  and  avowed.  The  Chris- 
tian religion  is  caricatured  and  libelled,  and  thus 
denounced.  Its  claims  are  ranked  with  those  of 
obsolete  mythologies.  Religion  itself  in  any  form 
is  pronounced  to  be  the  dream  of  superstition  or 
the  craft  of  priests. 

147 


148  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

This  second  class  of  enemies  to  the  cross  of 
Christ  are  very  strikingly  paralleled  by  the  char- 
acter and  deeds  of  the  Assyrian  king.  He  did 
and  proposed  to  do  by  the  sword,  what  they  do 
and  propose  to  do  by  tongue  and  pen.  A  very 
truthful  picture  of  the  one  may  be  seen  in  the  nar- 
rative of  the  other.  Let  us,  then,  read  the  char- 
acter of  modern  liostility  to  Christianity  in  that 
of  Sennacherib  and  his  marshals. 

1.  The  first  thing  which  attracts  our  notice  is 
their  boasffulnrss.  The  Assyrian  monarch  evident- 
ly had  no  mean  opinion  of  hhiiself.  '••  Know  ye 
not."  lie  says,  "'■  what  I  and  my  fathers  have  done  ?  " 
"•  We  are  big  men.  We  have  great  armies.  We 
are  flushed  with  victories.  We  do  not  know  what 
it  is  to  be  beaten.  Think  twice,  good  people, 
before  you  presume  to  contend  with  me.  Am  not 
I  the  great  and  noble  Sennacherib,  successor  to 
Nimrod  the  mighty,  the  ^^cto^  in  a  hundred  bat- 
tles, who  have  put  my  foot  on  the  neck  of  kings  ?  " 
Such  is  the  strain  in  which  this  Assyrian  fellow 
swaggers  at  the  people  of  the  living  God. 

Hardly  could  a  more  truthful  picture  be  drawn 
of  the  open  enemies  of  God  in  every  age.  One 
thing  is  always  characteristic  of  them,  —  they 
know  how  to  brag.  Self-conceit  is  their  most 
obvious  quality.  They  are  rich  in  brass.  Their 
claims  are  astounding  to  one  who  has  not  learned 
their  loud  policy.  Voltaire  predicted  with  brazen 
effrontery  that  Clu"L>tianity  would  be  defunct  in 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   KELIGION.  149 

twenty-five  years.  He  claimed  tliat  he  and  the 
encyclopa3dists  of  France  had  written  it  to  death. 
Yet  to-day,  after  a  century  has  gone  by,  the  copies 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures  circulated  in  France 
alone,  papal  though  it  be,  aic  numbered  by  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  every  year,  while  the  book- 
sellers say  that  no  other  works  lie  on  their  shelves 
so  long  as  the  once-famous  works  of  Voltaire. 

It  is'  a  favorite  device  —  one  cannot  call  it  argu- 
ment— with  the  enemies  of  tlio  gospel,  to  claim 
that  it  is  obsolete.  The  world  has  outlived  it. 
Like  other  superstitions  it  has  had  its  day.  The 
Old  Testament  especially  is  the  object  of  this  brag- 
gart- strategy.  "  Does  anybody  believe  that  stuff 
now?  "  said  a  very  young  lady  to  a  friend  not  long 
ago.  "  The  world  made  in  six  days?  Joshua  stop- 
ping the  sun  ?  Jonah  and  the  whale,  and  all  that  ? 
Ha,  ha !  I  thought  that  intelligent  people  had  got 
over  that."  Probably  she  would  have  found  it 
no  easy  matter  to  give  a  reason  for  her  denial  of 
the  faith  of  her  fathers.  But  her  flippancy  was 
the  fruit  of  the  loud-mouthed  assertions  of  infidel- 
ity that  the  Old  Testament  is  defunct. 

Any  lie  persisted  in  may  gain  the  force  and  mo- 
ment lun  of  a  truth.  These  naked  denials  of  bibli- 
cal facts  constitute  in  our  day  a  very  large  share 
of  the  capital  of  infidelity.  Science,  it  is  claimed, 
has  disproved  the  Mosaic  cosmogon}'',  at  the  very 
time  when  scientific  men  are  findino-  out  that  there 
is  a  mysterious  coincidence  between  the  Mosaic 


150  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

and  the  geologic  records.  The  testimony  of  the 
Book  and  the  testimony  of  the  rocks  agree  to  such 
marvellous  extent  that  unchristian  scientists  are 
beginning  to  inquire  ivhere  Moses  got  his  informa- 
tion. Moses  somehow  knew  w^hat  it  has  taken 
science  four  thousand  years  to  discover. 

The  growth  of  Christianity,  it  is  declared,  has 
ceased,  and  it  is  far  on  in  the  process  of  its  de- 
cline ;  at  the  very  time  when  secular  historians  are 
lauding  it  as  outweighing  all  other\;ivilizing  forces 
put  together. 

The  intelligence  of  the  Christian  S3'stem  is  de- 
nied :  it  is  claimed  to  be  only  fit  for  children  and 
fools ;  at  the  very  time  when  it  is  commanding  the 
faith  of  a  larger  proportion  of  the  thinkers  of  the 
race  than  any  other  system  known  in  history. 

Christian  missions  are  pronounced  a  failure,  at 
the  very  time  when  they  have  made  Christianity 
a  power  which  the  nations  respect  and  idolatry 
fears  over  more  than  half  the  world.  Cannibal 
tribes  are  transformed  into  fit  allies  of  the  most 
renowned  empires  and  most  enlightened  republics 
on  the  globe,  in  less  than  half  a  century,  by  the 
preaching  of  a  few  men  who  went  forth  to  their 
■work  amidst  the  world's  mingled  compasvsion  and 
derision,  —  compassion  for  their  fate,  and  derision 
for  their  folly;  and  yet  the  attempt  to  Christian- 
ize "happy  and  contented  idolaters "  is  declared 
an  antiquated  blunder. 

This,  I  repeat,  is  the  policy  by  which  the  ene- 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   RELIGION.  151 

mies  of  the  Christian  religion  expect  to  browbeat 
its  friends  out  of  their  faith.  This  polic}'  is  very 
old.  Our  religion  has  outlived  a  great  man}-  de- 
velopments of  it.  First  it  was  astronomy ;  then  it 
was  geology;  then  it  was  Chinese  and  Indian  liis- 
tory;  then  it  was  Egyptian  chronolog}^;  then  it 
was  flint  arrowheads  and  stone  hatchets  ;  and  now 
it  is  evolution  and  the  correlation  of  forces,  and  so 
on,  —  which  infidelity  has  declared  to  have  been  the 
death-blow  to  Christianity  and  the  annihilation  of 
its  sacred  books.  The  claim  is  not  a  prediction, 
not  a  conjecture,  but  a  declaration  of  historic  fact. 
The  thing  is  done.  The  Christian  system  is  de- 
funct. All  that  the  world  has  to  do  with  it  in 
future  is  to  smile  at  the  comedy,  and  learn  wisdom 
from  the  blunder.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  point  to 
the  achievements  of  our  faith  now  in  progress,  and 
claim  that  it  is  a  very  lively  thing  for  a  dead  thing. 
There  is  a  class  of  "  advanced  thinkers  "  who  will 
have  their  way  about  it.  They  ring  the  changes 
on  the  old  story,  —  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
obsolete,  and  belongs  henceforth  to  the  historic 
mythologies.  "  Philosophers  "  and  "  seers  "  and 
"liberal  thinkers"  talk  of  Confucius  and  Zoro- 
aster, and  Moses  and  Mahomet,  and  Jesus  and  Soc- 
rates, —  all  in  a  breath,  as  if  they  were  of  equal 
authority,  and  all  alike  ciphers  in  the  "  Church  of 
the  Future." 

It  is  related  of  an  ancient  king,  that  having  van- 
quished his  rival  in  battle,  and  taken  him  captive, 


152  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAJMEXT. 

lie  confined  him  in  a  cage,  from  which  he  was  led 
out  in  chains  daily,  and  compelled  to  bend  to  the 
ground  at  the  saddle-bows  of  his  victor,  who  used 
his  prostrate  l)()dy  as  a  riding-block  to  assist  him 
in  mounting  his  liorse.  Like  that  is  the  imperious 
spirit  with  wliich  the  avowed  enemies  of  Christ 
treat  his  claims  to  their  faith. 

'2.  A  second  feature  by  which  this  kind  of  hos- 
tility to  religion  is  characterized  is  its  special  ani- 
mosity to  the  ministers  of  the  gosj)el^  It  is  notice- 
able that  the  Ijragging  Assyrian  does  not  address 
his  appeal  chielly  to  tlie  Judtean  king  and  his  offi- 
cial rejjresentatives.  I  lis  attempt  is  to  stir  up 
revolt  among  the  populace,  by  appeals  to  their 
superstition  and  tlicir  fears.  The  official  head  of 
the  kingdom  and  liis  subalterns  are  treated  with 
contempt.  They  "  spake  yet  more  against  the  Lord 
God,  and  aijainst  his  servant  Hezekiah.''^  As  the 
head  of  a  theocratic  kingdom,  Hezekiah  was  the 
chief  official  representative  to  his  people  of  the  true 
religion. 

Again  and  again  is  this  hostility  to  the  ministers 
of  religion  displayed  by  its  open  foes.  The  people 
are  exhorted  to  revolt  against  "  the  priests."  The 
popular  name  wliich  infidelity  gives  to  Christian- 
ity is  "  priestcraft."  In  every  large  community 
in  which  enmity  to  the  gospel  is  openly  professed, 
is  to  be  found  a  class  of  men  who  are  pre-eminent- 
ly minister-haters.  Their  ridicule  and  denuncia- 
tion are  specially  aimed  at  the  clergy.     No  other 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   RELIGION.  158 

class  of  men  receive  at  their  hands  such  severe 
measure  and  uncandid  judgment.  The  human 
frailties  of  ministers  are  the  butt  of  their  satire. 
The  fall  of  a  minister,  they  never  let  the  world 
hear  the  last  of.  That  good-nature  which  the  ma- 
jority of  civilized  beings  extend  to  men  of  other 
professions,  is  often  denied  to  ministers.  Lawyers, 
judges,  physicians,  merchants,  teachers,  journalists, 
may  depend  upon  a  fair  hearing  and  a  genial  look 
fi-oni  these  men ;  but  they  are  jjorcupines  to  minis- 
ters. "When  will  the  enemies  to  the  popular  the- 
ology of  New  England  have  done  with  Cotton 
Mather?  When  will  the  opponents  of  the  Puri- 
tan faith,  throughout  the  country,  have  done  with 
the  Salem  witchcraft,  and  the  whipping  of  Quak- 
ers, and  the  banishment  of  Roger  Wilhams  ?  Will 
the  world  ever  accept  the  truth  about  the  Connect- 
icut Blue  Laws? 

The  clergy,  who  are  held  responsible  for  all  the 
moral  blunders  of  their  age,  are  the  most  roundly 
abused  of  men,  living  or  dead.  It  is  a  sign  of  the 
general  excellence  of  their  character,  and  a  sign, 
too,  that  infidelity  fears  them,  that,  with  such  con- 
centration of  the  world's  shafts  upon  them,  they 
exist  at  all  to-day,  as  a  class  respected  and  loved 
by  anybody.  No  thanks  are  due  to  religious  lib- 
eralism, that  their  characters  are  safe  anjnvhere. 
What  does  communism  say  of  the  Christian  cler- 
gy? What  did  it  do  to  the  humane  and  godly 
Archbishop  of  Paris  in  1871  ? 


154  STUDIES   OP  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

3.  Avowed  enmity  to  religion  is  often  character- 
ized also  by  the  plausibility  of  its  reasonings  against 
the  destiny  of  Christianity.  Sennacherib  was  a 
shrewd  fellow.  His  speech  to  the  Jewish  popu- 
lace was  a  very  cunning  specimen  of  demagogical 
oratory.  His  argument  was  a  very  plausible  one. 
His  facts  were  true.  He  and  his  fathers  had  been 
mighty  men.  Their  arms  had  been  crowned  with 
success.  The  nations  cowered  before  them.  The 
gods  of  the  nations  had  been  as  helpless  before 
their  conquering  legions  as  so  many  bullocks. 
Reasoning  upon  the  facts  in  the  light  of  no  other 
than  the  pagan  theology,  Sennacherib  was  right. 
His  conquest  of  Judaea  was  a  foregone  conclusion. 

"Were  the  gods  of  those  nations  any  ways  able 
to  deliver  their  lands  out  of  mine  hand  ?  " 

"No." 

"Who  was  there  among  all  the  gods  of  those 
nations  that  could  deliver  his  people  ?  " 

"  Not  a  god." 

"How  much  less  shall  your  God  deliver  you 
out  of  my  hand !  —  you,  Uttle  petty  Judah,  not  so 
large  as  the  least  of  my  provinces !  " 

"  True  :  it  is  a  fact." 

Such  must  have  been  the  colloquy  between 
them,  carried  on  by  the  Jewish  hearers  silently 
and  with  sinking  hearts.  On  the  pagan  theory  of 
the  gods,  and  in  the  light  of  recent  history,  the 
Assyrian  monarch  had  the  best  of  the  argument 
by  all  odds. 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   RELIGION.  155 

So  it  often  seems  in  the  controversy  between 
religion  and  its  avowed  enemies.  They  often 
seem  to  make  out  a  strong  case  of  it.  Much  can 
be  plausibly  said  against  religion  and  its  friends. 
Facts  can  be  made  to  seem  conclusive  against 
them.  Real  difficulties  are  found  in  our  faith, 
which  no  wise  man  will  pretend  that  he  does  not 
feel.  Science  discloses  facts  which  require  modi- 
fications of  our  interpretations  of  the  Scriptures. 
Astronomy  gave  a  fearful  shock  to  popular  faith 
in  the  Bible  —  simple  as  it  seems  to  us  now  — 
when  it  revealed  the  fact  that  the  sun  did  not 
move  around  the  earth.  As  simple  will  seem  the 
explanation  of  other  scientific  mysteries  by  and 
by;  but  they  are  none  the  less  startling  at  the 
outset,  for  that. 

The  ministers  of  religion,  too,  are  but  men,  often 
weak  men,  sometimes  wicked  men,  always  imper- 
fect men.  The  assaults  of  infidelity  upon  them 
often  seem  very  plausible.  Religion  itself  has  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  them. 

Specially  do  the  confident  predictions  of  the 
downfall  of  Christianity  often  seem  morally  cer- 
tain. The  philosophical  proof  alone  of  this  is 
unanswerable.  It  is  the  great  marvel  of  history, 
that  such  a  religion  as  ours  can  hold  its  own  at  all 
in  such  a  world  as  this.  By  all  the  laws  of  human 
evidence  by  which  men  prognosticate  the  future, 
the  Christian  religion  ought  long  before  this  time 
to  have  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 


156  STUDIES   OF   TETE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Its  temples  ought  to  be  now  antiquarian  ruins,  of 
which  curious  travellers  should  be  ferreting  out 
the  history  and  the  meaning.  The  Scriptures 
ought  now  to  be  stored  in  antiquarian  libraries, 
not  read  or  cared  for  by  twenty  men  in  a  genera- 
tion. 

On  purely  philosophical  grounds,  the  enemies 
of  our  religion  are  right  in  their  assurances  of  its 
speedy  overthrow.  The  balance  of  natural  prob- 
abilities is  never  in  its  favor.  The  ^eat  forces  of 
this  world  are  its  allied  foes.  Crises  have  oc- 
curred in  its  history,  in  which  persecution  has 
been  backed  up  by  wealth,  by  learning,  by  the 
prestige  of  antiquity,  by  civil  law,  by  public  opin- 
ion, and  by  bayonets,  —  by  all  the  great  forces 
which  sway  society  and  compact  empires ;  and 
thus  allied,  it  has  borne  down  —  upon  what  ? 
Upon  armies  bristling  with  steel?  upon  Ehren- 
breitsteins  and  Cronstadts  ?  No  :  upon  a  handful 
of  poor  men  and  friendless  women  and  little  chil- 
dren, who  had  no  weapon  of  defence  but  prayer ! 

Many  times  has  the  success  of  persecution 
seemed  to  be  a  foregone  conclusion.  Many  times 
has  its  success  appeared  to  be  an  accomplished 
fact.  It  has  laughed  at  failure  as  a  bugbear.  It 
has  burnt  up  the  handful  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, as  the  Duke  of  Alva  did  in  the  Netherlands. 
The  people  of  God  even  have  often  thought  their 
case  a  hopeless  one.  "We  trusted  that  it  had 
been  he  that  should  have  redeemed  Israel."     Oh, 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   RELIGION.  157 

yes  !  We  did  trust,  but  our  trust  is  disappointed. 
Oui-  enemies  have  triumphed.  Our  cause  is  hope- 
less.    We  can  only  lie  down  and  die. 

Periods  sometimes  occur  in  which  scepticism 
becomes  for  a  time  the  popular  mood  of  a  nation. 
Infidelity  is  greeted  by  the  controlling  minds  of 
tlie  time.  Universities  and  royal  societies  nurse 
it.  Elegant  literature  dandles  it.  Poetry  sings 
it.  The  sciences  pay  tribute  to  it.  Fashion  co- 
quets Avith  it.  Philosophy  crowns  it.  Wealth 
builds  temples  to  it.  Philanthropy  and  liberty 
brinsT  incense  to  it  from  afar.  Even  to  the  friends 
of  Christ  it  seems  as  if  every  thing  were  going 
agiiinst  them.  Society  seems  to  have  run  mad 
with  unbelief.  What  was  Paris  in  1789,  and  again 
in  1871,  but  one  vast  lunatic-asylum  of  unbe- 
lievers? At  such  times,  to  worldly  wisdom  it  is 
the  right  thing  to  prophesy  the  speedy  extinction 
of  Christianity. 

4.  The  history  of  the  avowed  enemies  of  Christ 
is  characterized  by  the  certainty^  the  suddenness^  and 
the  unexpected  means  of  their  disappointment. 

Somebody  miade  very  short  work  with  Sennache- 
rib. One  night  was  time  enough  to  answer  his 
gasconade  at  the  people  of  God.  One  verse  is  all 
that  the  historian  thinks  necessary  to  tell  the 
story :  "  The  Lord  sent  an  angel  which  cut  off  all 
the  mighty  men  of  valor."  One  angel  of  the 
Lord  was  a  match  for  the  Ass3Tian  battalions. 
The  mighty  men  were  not  looking  for  such  a  re- 


158  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

enforcement  to  their  enemy.  Tluit  was  the  last 
tiling  they  dreamed  of.  That  destroying  angel, 
be  it  a  pestilence  or  a  storm,  or  a  miraculous  appa- 
rition, was  the  "  angel  of  death "  to  a  hmidred 
and  eiglity-five  thousand  of  the  Assyrian  hosts 
before  morning. 

The  fame  of  that  mysterious  event  sjDread 
quickly  around  the  world.  It  became  the  symbol 
of  all  sudden  national  deliverances.  It  lives  thus 
to  our  own  times.  Isaiah's  triumphtwit  description 
of  it  is  read  every  year  in  the  churches  of  Moscow, 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  salvation  of  the  Russian 
Empire  by  the  celebrated  retreat  of  the  French 
army  in  1815.  The  opening  watchword  of  the 
Judaian  song  of  triumph,  "  God  is  our  refuge  and 
strength,"  has  furnished  the  inscription  over  the 
greatest  of  Eastern  chm-ches  in  Constantinople. 
It  is  the  foundation,  too,  of  the  noblest  national 
h>^nn  in  Western  Europe,  —  Luther's  far-famed 
"  Ein'  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott." 

An  English  poet  has  celebrated  the  event  in 
words  so  full  of  the  old  Hebrew  spirit  as  to  de- 
serve citation  here :  — 

"  The  Assyrian  came  c1o-s\ti  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold, 
And  his  cohorts  were  gleAming  in  purple  and  gold. 


Like  the  leaves  of  the  forest  when  summer  is  green, 
That  host  with  their  banners  at  sunset  were  seen: 
Like  the  loaves  of  the  forest  when  autumn  hath  blown, 
That  host  on  the  monow  hiv  withered  and  strown. 


AVOWED   ENEMIES   OF   RELIGION.  159 

For  the  angel  of  Death  spread  his  wings  on  the  blast, 
And  l)reathed  in  the  face  of  the  foe  as  he  passed; 
And  the  eyes  of  the  sleepers  waxed  deadly  and  chill, 
And  their  heails  but  once  heaved,  and  forevei'  grew  still  1 

And  there  lay  the  steed  with  his  nostril  all  wide. 

But  through  it  there  rolled  not  the  breath  of  his  pride. 


And  the  tents  were  all  silent,  the  banners  alone, 
The  lances  unlifted,  the  trumpet  unblown; 
And  the  might  of  the  Gentile,  unsmote  by  the  sword. 
Hath  melted  like  snow  at  the  glance  of  the  Lord." 

The  history  of  our  religion  develops  often  a 
similar  phenomenon  in  God's  dealings  with  its 
avDwed  and  boastful  enemies.  They  are  sure  to 
be  disappointed  in  the  result.  Something  keeps 
Christianity  alive  to-day,  centuries  after,  by  the 
logic  of  its  foes,  it  ought  to  have  been  dead  and 
buried.  Something  makes  it  grow  and  thrive. 
It  never  had  a  deeper  hold  upon  the  world's  faith 
than  now.  Neve;r  before  did  its  friends  look  out 
upon  a  more  resplendent  future. 

Often  the  local  triumphs  of  our  religion  occur 
suddenly.  A  revival  of  religion  changes  the  mood 
of  a  community  in  a  month.  Corrupt  institutions 
like  slavery  fall  suddenly,  and  by  unlooked-for 
agencies.  Times  of  apparent  decline  of  religion 
are  often  times  of  preparation,  in  which  great 
principles  are  secretly  taking  root ;  and  at  length 
they  start  up  and  grow  as  acknowledged  powers 
of  Clu'istiau  truth.     The   visible  progress  of  our 


160  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJVIENT. 

religion  in  the  world  is  commonly  by  sudden  leaps 
and  revolutionary  changes.  A  single  angel  from 
the  living  God  works  out  results  at  which  both 
friends  and  enemies  of  "truth  stand  amazed. 

Sometimes  in  private  communities  it  is  the 
angel  of  Death.  Opposers  of  religion  are  some- 
times removed  at  a  moment  so  critical,  that  men 
cannot  but  silently  put  the  two  things  together. 
By  ways   of  his   own,  God   achieves  his  eternal 

purposes.  » 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way, 
His  wonders  to  perform." 


A  TALK  WITH  YOUNG  PEOPLE  ABOUT 

JOSIAH. 

Josiah  was  eight  years  old  when  he  began  to  reign,  and  he 
reigned  in  Jerusalem  one  and  thirty  years.  And  he  did  that 
which  was  right  in  the  siglit  of  the  Lord,  and  walked  in  tlio  ways 
of  David  his  father,  and  declined  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor 
to  the  left.  For  in  the  eighth  year  of  his  reign,  while  he  was  yet 
young,  he  began  to  seek  after  the  God  of  David  hi.s  father:  and 
in  the  twelfth  year  he  began  to  purge  Judah  and  Jerusalem 
from  the  high  places,  and  the  groves,  and  the  carved  images,  and 
the  molten  images.  —  2  Chron.  xxxiv.  1-3. 

IT  is  a  noticeable  fact,  that  the  histories  in  the 
Old  Testament,  of  kings  and  other  great  men, 
tell  us  so  much  about  their  youth.  Where  they 
were  born  ;  who  their  fathers  and  mothers  were ; 
what  happened  to  them  in  their  childhood;  liow 
old  they  were  when  they  began  to  reign ;  the  fact 
that  some  of  them  were  boy-princes, — just  the 
things  about  them  which  interest  young  people  in 
them  in  all  ages,  —  are  thought  worthy  of  a  place 
in  the  word  of  God.  We  may  reasonably  take  it 
as  a  sign  that  God  feels  special  interest  in  children 
and  youth,  that  he  has  constructed  the  Bible  so. 

The  story  of  Josiah  is  not  so  well  known  as 
those  of  Samuel  and  Joseph ;  but  it  is  told  with 

IGl 


1G2  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

the  same  kind  of  zest,  and  is  as  full  of  lessons 
most  valuable  to  the  young. 

1.  It  shows,  among  other  things,  that  a  child 
may  become  a  Christian  very  early  in  life.  He  was 
but  fifteen  years  old  when  he  is  spoken  of  as 
"  seeking'  tlie  God  of  liis  father  David."  Tiiat 
was  the  fust  that  people  knew  of  it.  But  probably 
he  had  l)een  a  i)rayerful  boy  long  before  that. 
He  had  l)een  a  king  then  for  seven  years.  If  he 
had  been  a  wild  wayward  youth,  this  would  proba- 
bly have  been  mentioned. 

There  is  no  more  (.liifieulty  now  in  a  young  per- 
son's bee(»ming  a  Christian  than  there  was  in  the 
case  of  King  Josiah  or  of  Samuel.  When  youth 
lias  l)een  spent  in  sin,  sin  has  become  a  habit. 
The  habit  of  sin  is  quick  in  forming.  Once 
formed,  it  is  a  powerful  hinderance  to  conversion. 
The  natural  and  easy  way  for  a  child  is  to  grow 
up  a  Christian,  so  as  never  to  remember  the  time 
when  he  was  not  one. 

Nathan  Dickerman  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
an  unnatural  boy,  because  he  gave  evidence  of 
being  a  child  of  God  at  the  age  of  four  years. 
Many  have  thought  that  that  had  something  to  do 
with  his  early  death.  "All  the  good  boys  die 
early,"  it  is  said  of  Sunday-school  books.  The 
boolvs  may  not  all  be  what  they  ought  to  be,  but 
Nathan  Diekerman's  early  piety  was  just  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world.  We  shall  probably 
have   many   stich    cases   as    the    millemiium    ap- 


A   TALK  ABOUT   JOSIAH.  163 

proaches.  That  is  the  true  way  of  coming  into 
tlie  chm-ch,  —  growing  into  it  from  earliest  years. 

2.  The  narrative  of  this  young  king  sliows  also 
that  young  persons  may  become  Christians  without 
the  excitement  of  a  revival.  I  have  heard  children 
wish  tliat  a  great  revival  would  occur,  and  carry 
them  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ  iu  a  whirl  of 
excitement.  They  think  it  would  be  so  much 
easier,  if  'everybody  else  were  beginning  to  serve 
God.  If  their  companions  were  ready ;  if  George 
and  Henry  and  Mary  and  Julia  would  join  them ; 
if  there  were  a  great  stir  about  religion ;  if  people 
were  talking  of  nothing  else,  —  it  would  appear  so 
natural  then  to  do  as  others  do !  If  Mr.  Ham- 
mond, the  children's  preacher,  would  come,  and 
hold  a  series  of  meetings,  and  form  a  child's 
church,  with  a  covenant  wliich  a  child  could 
understand,  some  imagine  that  they  would  be 
among  the  first  to  rise  and  say,  "I  will  obey 
Christ." 

Perhaps  they  woidd;  yet  they  might  not  be 
any  nearer  heaven  than  now.  People  are  often 
deceived  in  a  revival.  None  are  more  likely  to  be 
so  than  young  people,  who  know  little  of  their 
own  hearts.  In  a  great  excitement,  Satan  often 
tries  to  make  one  think  one  is  a  Christian  falsely, 
80  as  to  escape  real  conversion. 

Besides,  often  the  great  test  of  our  willingness 
to  obey  God  is,  whether  we  are  willing  to  do  it 
alone.    To  do  whnt  others  do  7iot^  may  be  the  very 


104  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

thing  that  God  rcqiiirt's.  If  we  truly  h)ve  God^ 
we  slioukl  obey  him  if  we  were  the  only  persons 
in  the  world  to  do  it.  We  should  do  it  all  the 
more  for  being  alone.  If  the  dear  Saviour  had  no 
other  friend,  would  you  desert  him,  and  leave  him 
with  none?  It  wi>uld  be  heroie  to  stand  by  liim 
then.  This  Josiah  did  when  he  bciran  the  refor- 
mation  of  his  kingdom:  he  stood  absolutely  alone, 
lit-  started  the  revival  by  being  the  fii"st  convert. 

The  great  question  is  an  individual  one.  Daniel 
Webster  once  said,  that,  of  all  the  subjects  of 
human  thought  that  had  ever  occurred  to  him,  this 
way  the  greatest  and  the  most  imi)ressive,  —  "  the 
personal  relation  of  the  soul  to  God."  Salvation  lies 
between  each  single  soul  alone  and  (Jod  alone.  Eacli 
one  of  us  must  die  alone.  Each  one  must  go  into 
eternity  alone.  Each  one  must  be  judged  alone. 
It  will  matter  very  little  then  what  others  have 
done.  God  will  iniiuire  of  you  what  you  have 
done.  AMiy  should  you  wait  for  others,  or  they 
for  you  ?  Waiting  is  a  perilous  thing  when  God 
says  "  Now."  "  To-morrow  "  has  ruined  a  gi'eat 
many  soids. 

3.  King  Josiah^ii  conversion  shows  that  a  young 
person  may  became  a  Christian  Just  at  the  time  when 
the  pleasures  of  the  world  are  the  most  attractive. 
He  was  at  an  age  when  the  world  is  fresh  and  new 
to  a  3'oung  man.  He  was  a  king.  Tliis  world  is 
a  beautiful  place  to  a  youtlifid  prince  who  has 
health  and  wealth  and  leisure  and  princely  com- 


A  TALK    ABOUT   JOSTAH.  165 

panions  to  make  it  such.     One  could  bo  luippv  in 
such  a  world  forever. 

The  young  often  plead  it  as  an  excuse  for  neg- 
lecting to  obey  God,  that  they  are  so  young ;  the 
world  so  new;  so  many  of  their  associates  are 
irreligious ;  and  they  have  so  much  to  make  a 
worklly  life  enjoyable.  Not  so  did  the  youtliful 
king  reason.  Life  could  scarcely  look  more  at- 
tractiv-e  to  anybody  than  it  did  to  him.  He  might 
have  made  one  long  holiday  of  it.  That  was  the 
fashion  of  the  time.  Nobody  thought  it  necessary 
to  be  religious  but  a  few  old  gray-haired  prophets. 
It  .would  have  attracted  no  notice,  and  nobody 
would  have  bhimed  him,  if  he  had  lived  a  life  of 
respectable  neglect  of  God.  But  he  loved  God. 
He  wished  to  please  God. 

The  happiest  life  conceivable  in  tliis  world  is 
the  life  of  one  to  whom  (rod  gives  the  innocent 
enjoyments  of  youth,  and  adds  to  them  the  deeper 
joys  of  religion.  There  is  no  contradiction  be- 
tween them.  God  enjoys  the  sports  of  the  young 
more  than  the)"  do,  if  only  the}'  love  liim.  Who 
is  it  that  makes  the  lambs  skip,  and  the  birds  sing, 
and  the  squirrels  chirp,  and  the  bees  hum  ?  Their 
pleasiu'e  is  all  pleasure  to  God. 

4.  The  story  of  Josiah  shows,  further,  that  a 
child  may  be  a  Christian  ivithout  being  unmanly  or 
unwomanly.  Boys  sometimes  imagine  that  religion 
will  take  the  spirit  all  out  of  them.  I  have  never 
heard  girls  say  this,  but  I  suspect  they  have  often 


1G6  STUDIES   OF   TTIE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

folt  it.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  "  the  pious  boy 
is  the  milksop  of  the  family."  If  this  is  true,  it  is 
very  stranu^c  that  Kin<>j  Josiah  did  not  turn  out  so. 
He  began  to  be  religious  very  early.  We  do  not 
know  that  lie  was  ever  any  thing  else.  But  even 
at  the  age  of  nineteen  years  he  was  a  great  reform- 
er. Reformers  are  not  apt  to  be  milksops.  Did 
anybody  ever  call  Luther  a  milksop?  The  pope 
did  not  call  him  so.  lie  found  him  such  a  lively 
opponent  that  he  could  think  of  nothing  to  do  with 
him  but  to  burn  hiin.  Wlini  Luther  entered  the 
hall  where  the  Diet  df  Worms  was  in  session,  one  of 
the  ablest  military  commanders  of  the  age  tapped 
him  on  the  shoulder,  and  said,  "Monk,  monk, 
thou  art  on  a  passage  more  perilous  than  I  evei 
knew  on  the  blootliest  battle-field."  Such  milk- 
sops are  the  great  reformers  of  the  world. 

Kinij  Josiah  was  one  of  such.  He  did  for  his 
country  and  age  what  Luther  did  for  Europe.  He 
■was  the  most  energetic  man  in  his  kingdom.  We 
sometimes  say  of  a  very  bright  youth,  that  he  is 
the  life  of  the  house.  King  Josiah  was  just  that. 
He  made  things  lively  for  everybody.  Judah 
never  had  a  more  spirited  and  gallant  prince.  Had 
he  lived  in  the  middle  ages,  he  would  have  been 
renowned  for  all  chivalrous  virtues.  Did  you  ever 
read  of  the  ''  Knights  of  St.  John"?  In  all  their 
innocent  exploits.  King  Josiah  would  have  been 
one  of  them.  He  put  down  the  bad  men  of  the 
realm,  right  and  left,  most  valiantly.  Not  one  of 
them  dared  to  insult  him. 


A   TALK   ABOUT   JOSIAH.  1G7 

At  last  he  lost  his  life  by  courageous  exposure 
in  battle,  though  warned  beforehand  not  to  risk  it. 
The  whole  nation  mourned  for  him  as  one  of  the 
bravest  monarchs  they  had  ever  had ;  and  tliis 
after  a  long  reign  of  thirty-odd  years.  If  his  piety 
had  made  a  prig  of  him,  would  not  his  peojjle  have 
found  him  out  in  tliat  time?  Yet  they  loved  Idm 
and  mourned  for  him,  much  as  our  country  loved 
and  mourned  for  President  Lincoln. 

Let  me  tell  )'ou  how  the  idea  has  come  about, 
that  religion  makes  a  boy  a  chicken-hearted  fellow. 
It  is  just  because  religion  cultivates  certain  sfill 
virtues.  Benevolence,  purity,  reverence,  meek- 
ness, charity,  the  forgiveness  of  injuries,  and  such 
like,  are  required  by  the  law  of  Christ.  A  young 
man  who  becomes  a  Chi'istian  will  not  swear,  nor 
quarrel  with  his  companions,  nor  break  the  sab- 
bath, nor  insult  his  teachers,  nor  sing  ribald  songs 
in  the  streets,  nor  brag  about  fighting  everybody. 
In  a  word,  he  will  not  be  a  rcnvdi/,  but  a  gentle- 
man. Therefore  he  will  be  nicknamed  "milksop  " 
by  rowdies.  That  he  must  expect.  It  is  an  honor 
to  be  nicknamed  by  rowdies.  He  should  remem- 
ber that  all  that  religion  requires  of  him  in  this 
respect  is  that  he  cultivate  and  practise  the  very 
virtues  which  are  necessary  to  make  a  gentleman. 
The  very  highest  type  of  character  which  the  cul- 
ture of  the  world  has  ever  conceived  of  is  that  of 
a  Chrhtian  gentleman.  And  that  is  precisely  what 
religion  makes  a  young  man.     By  the  way,  have 


1G8  STUDLES   OF   THP:   OLD   TEST^N3IENT. 

you  ever  tlioutjlit  wliat  is  the  meaning  of  this  word 
"gentk^man '  ?  It  is  only  a  //f;t//i-//ui;t.  That  is, 
a  man  possesst'd  of  tht*  (piiet  and  passive  graces, 
just  those  which  the  Christian  religion  teaches. 
Wickeihiess  always  tends  to  rudeness,  to  violence, 
to  angry  and  turlmlent  passions,  to  loud  and  pro- 
fane speech.  The  noblest  culture  of  the  world 
unconsciously  supports  the  Christian  religion  in 
teaching  a  hoy  that  he  must  be  a  <jenth'-man. 

I  have  heard  of  an  ignorant  boy  who  was  very 
fond  of  iigliting,  who,  when  lu'  was  askcil  who 
was  the  ]>erson  in  heaven  whom  he  most  wanted 
to  see,  sang  out,  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  Go- 
liath I  "  lb'  thought  the  Philistine  giant  was  a 
much  more  respectable  man  than  Solomon.  So 
long  as  we  ninnber  among  the  godly  men  of  the 
world  such  men  as  David  and  Solomon  and 
Josiah,  and  St.  Louis  of  Franee,  and  Edward  the 
Sixth  of  England,  and  (Justavus  Adolplius,  and 
William  of  Orange,  and  Washington,  and  Lincohi, 
we  have  no  reason  to  fear  that  our  religion  will 
make  us  chicken-hearted.  When  that  takes  place, 
the  world  will  have  to  find  some  other  name  for 
its  finest  characters  than  that  ui gentle-man. 

5.  The  history  of  tliis  ancient  prince  suggests 
also  that  one  who  becomes  a  Christian  early  in  life 
is  likely  to  become  a  better  man  than  one  who  first 
lives  through  a  career  of  sin.  He  is  likely  to  be  a 
more  consistent  Christian.  He  will  probably 
have  fewer  faults  to  get  rid  of,  and  fewer  habits 
which  his  piety  must  break  up. 


A  TALK   ABOUT   JOSIAH.  169 

It  is  remarkable  that  through  tlie  Avhole  of 
Josiali's  long  reign,  —  one  of  the  longest  in  Judiean 
annals,  —  not  one  wrong  thing  is  reeorded  of  him. 
Doubtless  he  hail  faults,  and  tlid  wrong  things ; 
but  not  one  was  important  enough  to  be  men- 
tioned in  the  Bible.  Other  great  and  good  men 
are  mentioned  in  ihe  Seri23tui'es,  who  were  very 
ineonsistent.  Tliey  did  some  very  wicked  things. 
Soipe  of  them  had  long  periods  of  wickedness, 
in  which  they  displeased  God  exceedingly,  and 
had  to  suffer  for  it.  The  Uible  is  very  honest 
about  its  great  men.  It  does  not  conceal  their 
fiiults,  nor  make  them  out  better  than  they  were. 
Bn\  of  King  Josiah  it  has  not  a  thing  to  say 
with  which  God  tinds  fault.  The  only  important 
mistake  recorded  of  him  was  that  in  which  he  lost 
his  life  by  fighting  with  the  king  of  Egypt.  The 
narrative  appeal's  to  indicate  that  God  incited  the 
Egyptian  king  to  warn  him  that  he  would  lose 
liis  lite  if  he  went  into  the  battle.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  that  he  knew  that  the  warnmg  came  from 
God.  lie  thought  it  was  the  notion  only  of  his 
enemy.  lie  determmed  that  liis  enemy  should 
not  outwit  him  in  that  way.  Therefore,  like  the 
brave  man  he  was,  and  the  father  of  his  country, 
he  plunged  into  the  thickest  of  the  fight,  and  died 
as  brave  soldiers  love  to  tlie.  Except  that  one 
mistake  of  excessive  bravery  and  patriotism,  not 
a  thing  is  recorded  of  him  that  went  wrong. 

This  mdicates  that  as  he  grew  up  to  manhood 


170  STUDIES   OF   TlIK   OLD   TESTAAIENT. 

he  liiul  a  very  synunetiicul  chaiacUT.  Ilr  was  a 
great  and  good  man  all  around.  This  -was  the 
natural  result  of  his  early  piety.  Other  things 
being  equal,  those  become  the  best  men  an<l 
women  who  spend  the  largest  portion  of  their 
lives  in  servinsr  God.  Thev  have  the  least  to 
undo,  in  consecrating  their  lives  to  Christ,  the 
fewest  old  sins  to  overcome,  the  least  headway  of 
sinful  habit  to  get  rid  of. 

In  mv  boyhood  I  used  to  attend  the  church  of 
the  late  Rev.  Albert  Harnes  of  IMiiladclphia.  He 
used  to  preach,  once  in  two  months,  a  sermon  to 
us  children.  We  thought  him  the  holiest  man  in 
the  world.  We  used  to  call  him  "the  beloved 
disciple,"  he  was  so  like  the  apostle  John.  We 
did  not  believe  that  St.  John  was  a  better  man. 
liut  I  well  remember  his  confessing  to  us,  that, 
though  he  had  then  been  a  Christian  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  he  had  not  entirely  got  over 
certain  wrong  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
he  had  indulwd  in  his  youth.  He  lamented  all 
his  life  that  he  had  not  given  his  heart  to  God  in 
his  boyhood.  He  said,  that,  if  he  had  done  so,  he 
should  have  been  a  better  Christian  and  a  hai)- 
pier  man. 

6.  The  story  of  tliis  good  king  suggests  further, 
that  the  way  for  a  young  person  to  become  a  Christian 
is  to  make  a  bu»iness  of  doing  rigid.  Josiah's  whole 
life  was  spent  in  setting  things  right  tlu-oughout  his 
kingdom.     Before  liis  reign  every  thing  had  gone 


A   TALK   AROUT  JOSIAII.  171 

wrong.  The  worship  of  God  was  neglected.  Idols 
were  worshipped  instead.  The  word  of  God  was 
lost.  The  peopU'  had  beeonie  so  wicked  as  to  have 
forgotten  what  God  had  commanded  in  tlie  law  of 
Moses.  That  was  as  if  j-ou  and  I  shouhl  become 
so  heedless  of  God's  words  as  to  forget  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  The  temple  which  Solomon  liad  huill  with 
such  magnilicence  was  so  neglected  that  cattle 
broke  into  it ;  and  every  thing  was  in  a  bad  way. 

As  soon  as  the  young  king  was  old  enough  to 
understand  the  state  of  things,  lie  set  himself,  aiid 
his  ministers,  and  his  cabinet,  and  his  soldiers,  and 
his  workmen,  to  putting  things  to  rights,  lb-  be- 
gatt  early,  and  kept  at  it,  and  spent  his  life  in  it. 
Nobody  else  put  him  up  to  it.  It  was  his  own 
idea.  We  are  told  that  he  ''  covenanted  to  serve 
God  with  all  his  heart  and  with  all  his  soul." 
This  is  what  I  mean  by  making  a  hujuiness  of  doing 
right.  He  started  with  the  very  first  thing  that 
he  had  to  do,  and  did  it  riyht^  and  in  order  to  please 
God. 

Now,  this  is  the  true  waj--  to  be  a  Christian. 
There  is  no  great  mystery  about  it.  There  is  noth- 
ing in  it  which  a  ciiild  cannot  do  by  the  grace  of 
God  as  well  as  anybody  else.  You  can  do  it  as 
well  as  I.  God  does  not  require  you  to  go  through 
any  long  season  of  unhappiness,  in  trying  to  feel 
as  some  others  have  felt  in  repenting  of  sin.  You 
have  only  to  do  right  in  order  to  please  Christ. 
That  is  religion,  and  that  is  the  whole  of  it. 


172  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

To  a  young  child,  religion  consists  very  lurgelj 
in  obeying  parents ;  running  on  errands  pleas- 
antly ;  speaking  the  truth ;  learning  lessons  faith- 
fully ;  l)eing  respectful  to  teachers ;  being  kind  to 
playmates,  especially  the  poor  ones  and  unhappy 
ones ;  reverencing  tlie  aged ;  praying  with  the 
heart,  instead  of  "saying  prayers;"  and  doing 
all  these  things  in  order  to  please  Christ,  because 
lie  is  good  and  has  died  for  you,  and  you  love 
him. 

Take  the  very  first  thing  you  have  to  do;  be  it 
only  to  go  for  a  glass  of  water  for  your  mother,  or 
playing  a  game  of  croijuet  with  your  sister,  when 
you  had  rather  play  marbles  than  do  either:  do 
the  thing  that  costs  you  something,  and  do  it  ri/ht^ 
and  do  it  because  it  will  please  Clirist.  Christ 
will  be  j)leased  with  it,  as  truly  as  he  was  with 
Solomon  for  builtling  the  temple,  or  with  Josiah 
for  repairing  it. 

Then  keep  doing  things  right,  and  in  order  to 
please  God,  all  your  life.  That  is  living  a  Clu-is- 
tian  life.  It  will  be  made  up  largely  of  little 
things.  Christ  has  taken  pains  to  say  to  us  that 
he  is  contented  with  little  services  from  us.  A 
cup  of  cold  water  given  in  the  right  way  shall  not 
lose  its  reward.  He  notices  little  things  more 
than  he  does  great  ones,  because  there  are  more  of 
them,  and  everybody  can  do  them.  Make  a  busi- 
ness of  doing  them  right,  and  he  "VNill  remember  it 
thousands  and  millions  of  years  hence,  and  when  he 


A   TALK   ABOUT   JOSIAH.  173 

comes  to  judgment.  Out  of  all  the  millions  of 
people  that  will  he  there,  he  will  -call  for  you^  and 
say,  "  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father.  " 


AN   ANCIENT   :^rODEL   OF   YOUTHFUL 
TEMrKUANCP:. 

But  Daniul  purpjsfil  in  his  lioart  that  he  would  not  defile 
himself  with  the  portion  of  the  kin^^'s  iii<;at,  qor  with  the  wino 
whiuli  he  drank.  —  D.vx.  i.  8. 

ri^llK  Old  Testament  often  seems  as  if  it  were 
J-  insj)ire(l  especially  for  young  men.  The  les- 
son before  us  answers  with  singular  pertinence 
the  inquiry  which  every  young  man  ought  to  ask 
ami  answer  in  a  manly  way:  '''•What  atami shall  I 
take  respecting  obedience  to  the  drinking  usages  of 
society?'''' 

We  talk  of  the  old  prophets.  But  at  the  time 
of  which  we  now  speak,  this  one  was  a  very  young 
man.  He  comes  home,  therefore,  to  every  young 
man's  level.  He  takes  each  one  by  the  hand  for 
a  plain  brotherly  talk  on  a  very  stale  subject. 
Let  us  listen  and  overhear  the  young  prophet's 
counsel. 

I.  What  were  Daniel's  temptations  to  abandon 
a  life  of  abstinence  from  strong  drink?  Many  a 
namesake  of  his  may  look  into  his  own  life  for  the 
answer. 

1.  He  was   temj^;ted   by  his  youth.     He  is  sup- 

174 


ANCIENT   MODEL   OF   TEMPERANCE.  175 

posed  to  have  been  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  when  the  question  of  abstinence  be- 
came a  practical  one  to  liini.  He  was  at  the  age 
when  appetite  is  strong,  health  good,  principle 
weak,  and  experience  not  at  all.  A  young  man 
starts  often  on  a  life  of  self-indulgence  by  simply 
doing  nothing,  thinking  nothing,  caring  nothing. 
He  just  prolongs  into  manhood  the  animal  instincts 
of  childhood.  Before  he  knows  it  the  mischief  is 
done.  We  are  all  animals  before  we  are  men. 
Drinking  is  our  first  natural  pleasure.  It  is  for 
each  young  man  to  say  for  himself  whether  it 
shall  be  the  last. 

2i  Daniel  was  tempted  also  hy  the  iisages  of  his 
social  rank.  He  was  a  noble,  probably  of  the 
blood-royal.  It  was  the  usage  of  his  order  to 
drink  wine,  and  the  best  of  it,  and  much  of  it. 
Probably  then,  as  now,  it  was  the  sign  of  a  gentle- 
man in  the  circle  of  society  in  which  the  young 
nobleman  moved,  to  know  good  wine  when  he 
tasted  it,  to  use  it  freely,  and  to  enjoy  the  social 
hilarity  of  it  without  scruple.  Oriental  literatui'e 
had  its  drinking-songs,  like  those  of  Burns  and 
Thomas  Moore.  Babylon  had  its  Fifth  Avenue, 
its  Chestnut  Street,  its  Beacon  Street,  where  the 
social  aristocracy  of  the  city  discussed  the  con- 
tents of  their  wine-cellars,  as  did  the  guests  at  the 
marriage  in  Cana.  It  required  not  a  little  moral 
courage  for  a  young  noble  of  the  royal  stock  of 
Judah    to   go  to  the  metropolitan  dinner-parties, 


17G  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

and  leave  his  wine  untasted.  "  An  odd  fellow,  this 
young  Hebrew !  "  liis  companions  said.  "  Yes,  in- 
deed! Does  the  upstart  Jew  think  to  teach  us 
what  should  be  the  habits  of  a  Babylonian  gentle- 
man : 

3.  Daniel  was  tempted  l>i/  the  courteaics  of  offi- 
cial station.  He  was  in  training  for  the  first  office 
in  the  realm.  He  encountered  the  same  tempta- 
tion which  a  young  man  would  now  encounter  if 
he  were  invited  to  dine  at  the  mansion  of  the 
French  ^linister  in  Washington.  ''  If  I  have  the 
honor  of  drinking  the  health  of  tlie  beautiful  and 
accomplished  daughter  of  tlie  Hon.  Secretary 
Xerxes,  shall  I  play  the  boor  by  refusing,  for  the 
sake  of  an  absurd  scruple  about  a  glass  of  N\ine?" 
Such  was  the  gist  of  the  ([uestion  which  put  the 
principle  of  the  young  Hebrew  to  the  test.  Tb.w 
manv  young  Americans  m  official  circles  would 
have  borne  the  trial? 

4.  Daniel  was  tempted  also  bi/  his  professional 
prospects.  Few  young  men  have  ever  lived  who 
have  had  a  more  splendid  opening  before  them,  to 
a  magnificent  professional  career,  than  the  young 
prophet  statesman  had  at  the  court  of  Babylon. 
He  was  noted  for  his  manly  beauty.  His  personal 
address  was  that  of  an  accomplished  nobleman. 
He  was  acquuing  the  ripest  culture  of  the  age. 
He  had  only  to  conform  to  the  usages  of  the  most 
select  and  refined  society  of  the  capital,  to  make 
sure  of  a  career  which  should  satisfy  the  utmost 


ANCIENT   MODEL  OF  TEJUPERANCE.  177 

ambition  of  an  aspiring  youth  who  was  conscious 
that  he  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  great  states- 
man, and  a  leader  of  men. 

The  temptation  was  the  same  in  kind  with  that 
which  assails  a  3'oung  lawyer  or  physician  in  New 
York  or  Philadelphia,  who  has  his  own  way  to 
make  in  his  profession,  and  who,  if  true  to  the 
principle  of  total  abstinence  from  intoxicating 
drinks,  must  by  his  example  reprove  the  very  men 
on  whose  support  he  depends  for  professional  suc- 
cess. Said  one  such,  "  .V  carriage  and  a  conscience 
are  expensive  luxuries.  In  my  profession  one  can- 
not enjoy  both.  I  prefer  to  drive  my  carriage." 
So  did  not  the  young  civilian  at  the  court  of  Baby- 
lon. 

More  than  one  member  of  the  American  Con- 
gress has  died  a  sot  because  he  could  not  with- 
stand this  form  of  temptation.  One  member  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  of  a  past 
generation,  was  persuaded  by  his  friends  to  resign 
his  office,  and  retire  to  the  practice  of  his  profes- 
sion in  his  native  State,  because  he  could  not  en- 
dure the  peril  to  which  the  di-inking  habits  of 
Washington  subjected  a  man  in  his  position.  "  Bo- 
disco's  wines  are  too  much  for  me,"  was  the  lame 
apology  of  an  intoxicated  senator  for  his  beastly 
appearance  in  the  Senate  Chamber  after  a  dinner 
the  night  before  at  the  mansion  of  the  Russian 
minister.  If  report  be  true,  more  than  one  mem- 
ber of  that  honorable  body  now  owe  to  the  young 


178  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

men  of  the  countiv  ii  similar  liimiiliating  eoufes- 
sion. 

5.  Diiuifl  was  tempted  also  by  his  ahsence  from 
home  and  native  Idud.  The  tour  of  Europe  has 
broken  down  the  principles,  and  broken  up  the 
liabits,  of  multitudes  from  America.  Paris  is  a 
volcanic  vortex  to  scores  of  American  metlical  stu- 
dents. One  such,  when  his  ruin  was  complete, 
beyond  hope  of  recovery,  used  liis  medical  knowl- 
edge as  a  means  of  reckoning  how  iftany  yeai*s  his 
broken  constitution  could  bear  the  excesses  to 
whiih  he  had  liecome  addicted.  "I  know,"  said 
he,  "  that  I  can  enjoy  life  in  my  own  way  about 
so  many  years.  I  shall  parcel  out  niv  fortune  to 
last  so  long  a  time,  and  no  longer.  When  my 
time  is  up,  my  revolver  shall  end  all.  No  long 
decline  for  me.  Dying  is  wi'ctched  business,  and 
shall  be  soon  over."  Parisian  life  had  given  hira 
both  his  habits  and  his  etliics. 

A  younir  nian  does  not  know  how  much  of  the 
real  grit  of  right  principle  he  has  in  him  till  he 
goes  away  from  home,  and  lives  where  nobody 
knows  him ;  where  he  can  live  anyhow,  and  do 
any  thing,  and  yet  come  silently  back,  and  his  old 
friends  shall  be  none  the  wiser.  Alas  I  many  such 
young  men  have  brought  back  seared  consciences 
and  hardened  hearts,  and  habits  of  self-indulgence 
which  have  doomed  them  to  a  (bunkard's  grave. 

Yet  this  form  of  temptation  the  young  Hebrew 
statesman  did  not  escape.     He  met  it  in  its  most 


AKCIENT   MODEL   OF   TEMPERANCE.  170 

UTgent  form.  He  was  not  only  in  a  foreign  land, 
in  the  Paris  of  the  ancient  world,  in  the  conrt  o{  a 
king,  associating  with  corrnpt  young  nobles  and 
aristocratic  pleasure-seekers,  but  he  was  a  captive. 
He  had  no  home.  His  own  country,  as  an  inde- 
pendent kingdom,  was  blotted  from  the  map  of 
Asia.  Judiea  was  to  Asia  what  Poland  is  to  Eu- 
rope,—  nationidly  and  politically  it  had  ceased 
to  be. 

Pttlish  nol)les  to-day,  in  the  capitals  of  Europe, 
seek  to  drown  their  memory  of  their  country's 
wrongs.  If  auyljody  could  find  palliation  of  in- 
temperate habits,  they  can  lind  it  in  their  national 
mitslortunes.  Just  that  form  of  intense  temptation 
young  Daniel  encountered  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one. 

Put  now  all  these  things  together,  —  3'outh, 
social  usage,  offieial  rank,  professional  interests, 
absence  from  home  and  native  land,  and  the  mor- 
tifications of  captivity,  —  and  where,  m  modern 
life,  can  you  find  a  case  of  stronger  temptation  to 
a  self-indulgent  and  pleasure-seeking  career? 

n.  Pass  we  now  to  observe  what  was  the  young- 
nobleman's  conduct  in  the  trial. 

1.  He  was  true  to  his  faith  in  abstinence  from 
the  use  of  wine.  Let  us  not  muddle  ourselves  here 
with  irrelevant  matters.  Whetlier  or  not  wine- 
drinking  is  a  sin  per  se  ;  whether  or  not  a  pledge 
to  abstahi  is  a  duty ;  whether  or  not  membership 
Oi  a  temperance  society  is  wise ;  whether  or  not 


180  STUDIES   OF   TITE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

wine  is  mtirc  iiuiDcent  than  rum ;  wliether  tliis, 
that,  or  the  other  is  the  wisest  policy,  —  do  not  at 
all  concern  tlie  point  in  hand. 

The  point  is,  that  the  young  prophet  hml  a  ])rin- 
ciple  of  his  own  oii  ihc  subject,  and  adhered  Id  it. 
lie  believed,  no  matter  why,  that  for  him  wint- 
was  a  forbidden  luxury;  and  he  stuck  to  that  con- 
viction, lie  was  not  cajoled  out  of  it  by  sellish 
interests  nor  by  side  issues.  A  remarkable  thing 
about  him  is  the  absence  of  casuistry.  He  makes* 
no  altemi)t  to  hoodwink  his  conscience.  lie 
accepts  it  as  a  plain  case.  Duty  settled,  every 
thing  is  scttlctl.  He  will  be  true  to  that,  though 
the  heavens  fall.  Not  one  of  the  inducements  he 
had  to  twist  his  conscience  awry,  and  create  for 
himself  an  exceptional  ca.^^e,  has  a  feathei*s  weight 
with  him.  His  friend  and  superior  talks  of  the 
danger  of  lo.sing  his  head.  He  retreats  none  the 
more  for  that. 

Yet  he  does  not  bluster.  He  does  not  even  say 
much  of  conscience.  He  does  not  fling  his  con- 
victions in  the  face  of  his  friends.  He  does  not 
browbeat  tho.^^e  who  differ  from  him.  Not  a  word 
appears  which  implies  that  he  thought  wine- 
drinkincT  a  sin  in  them.  Heads  shall  be  saved,  and 
friendships  kept  intact,  if  it  may  be  honestly  done. 
It  deserves  emphasis,  that,  in  fidelity  to  his  own 
convictions,  he  did  no  \'iolence  to  those  of  others. 
In  becoming  a  reformer  he  did  not  cease  to  be  a 
gentleman. 


ANCIENT   MODEL   OF   TEMPERANCE.  181 

2.  Daniel  was  true  to  the  education  of  his  child- 
hood. His  convictions  were  doubtless  the  fruit  of 
early  training.  He  is  not  asliamcd  of  tliat.  lie 
indulges  in  no  swagger  about  the  bigotry  of  liis 
father,  and  the  narrow  mind  of  his  teachers.  lie. 
does  not  pleael  that  now  he  has  come  tt)  manliood 
he  must  act  for  himself,  and  will  not  be  bound  by 
the  usage  of  his  father's  house. 
^  Young  men  sometimes  break  away  from  the  tem- 
perate principles  and  liabits  of  their  youth  on  this 
plea  of  personal  independence.  They  boa>st  that 
they  have  attained  to  greater  breadth  of  view 
than  the  fiithers  had.  Ah,  yes!  breadth  of  view. 
"  Broad  \'iews,"  I  have  observed,  are  but  the  gild- 
ed gateway  to  the  "broad  road."  They  remind  me 
of  the  young  man  of  whom  I  have  somewhere 
read,  who  would  no  longer  read  the  Bible  which 
he  had  been  taught  to  revere,  "  because, "  he  said, 
"it  has  such  a  mess  of  Presbvterian  bigrotrv  in  it." 
Daniel  is  gulled  by  no  such  nonsense.  He  will 
put  his  foot  into  no  trap  of  self-conceit  which 
Satan  may  set  to  catch  the  vanity  of  youth. 

He  has  been  educated  to  do  ri(^ht,  and  of  that 
he  is  not  ashamed.  His  conduct  is  clearly  in  con- 
trast, and  is  meant  to  be,  with  the  customs  of  the 
society  around  him.  Jerusalem  against  Babylon  : 
that  is  the  gist  of  it.  His  father's  house  stands 
over  against  the  court  of  the  kingr.  The  traininsr 
of  his  cliildhood  is  pitted  against  the  corruption 
of  the  heathen  capital.     Jew  against  Pagan :  when 


182  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

it  comes  to  that,  he  stands  manfully  by  the  tradi- 
tions of  liis  own  kindred  and  the  home  of  his  in- 
fancy. His  silent  soliloquy  is,  "  Mine  be  the  God 
of  my  fathers,  mine  the  old  songs  of  my  country's 
faith,  mine  the  jirayers  that  my  mother  taught 
me." 

3.  lie  was  true  also  to  the  principle  of  temperance 
as  a  reliijious  virtue.  The  drinking  customs  of 
Babylon  often  meant  more  than  they  seemed  to 
mean.  They  were  saturated  with  the  virus  of 
idolatry.  A  Chakhean  dinner-party  was  a  sacrifice 
to  the  gods  of  the  kingdom,  as  were  afterwards 
the  social  entertainments  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
If  a  state  banciuet  were  given  at  the  palace,  mstead 
of  inviting  the  young  Hebrew  to  dine  with  the 
princes  of  the  realm,  the  invitation  would  read  in 
some  such  form  as  this:  "His  Majesty  the  King 
commands  the  presence  of  Belteshazzar  at  a  sacri- 
fice to  Baal." 

It  became,  therefore,  a  very  essential  element  in 
the  policy  of  the  prophet-statesman,  that  it  should 
be  pervaded  by  the  dignity  of  his  religion.  The 
idolatrous  banquet  at  the  palace  must  be  met  by 
the  religious  temperance  of  the  guest.  Thus  Dan- 
iel practised  temperance  as  a  religious  virtue, — 
nothing  less.  He  put  it  on  the  basis  of  a  religious 
scruple.  ''  He  pm-posed  in  liis  heart  that  he  would 
not  defile  himself  ^vith  the  king's  meat  and  wine." 

Language  cannot  well  express  more  trutlifuUy 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  temperance  re- 


ANCIENT   MODEL   OF   TEMPERANCE.  183 

form.  The  virtue  it  inculcates  is  a  religious  vir- 
tue. It  is  a  religious  reform,  or  it  is  nothing.  Its 
opposite  involves  moral  defilement,  to  which  no 
young  man  of  lofty  and  pure  spirit  will  subject 
himself.  Pure  manhood  in  this  thing  needs  to 
respect  itself  with  much  of  the  delicacy  of  chaste 
womanhood.  Both  revere  the  sacredness  of  the 
liunian  body.  They  treat  it  as  the  temple  of  God. 
Rarely  do  young  men  maintain  their  position  as 
the  friends  of  temperance  on  any  less  holy  ground. 

Said  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  on  the  platform  of 
a  native  society  for  the  improvement  of  Hindoo 
morals,  "  If  you  wish  to  make  any  thing  eternal, 
you  must  build  it  on  the  Christian  religion.  That 
is  the  only  thing  in  tliis  world  that  is  eternal." 
He  was  right.  No  reform  is  worth  its  cost,  which 
is  not  important  enough  to  rise  to  the  level  of  a 
religious  duty.  INIake  it  that,  to  the  consciences  of 
men,  and  it  will  live.  Make  it  less  than  that,  and 
men  may  play  with  it  for  a  day,  but  will  never 
build  it  into  any  thing  that  can  live  to  future  ages. 

4.  The  prophet  also  calmly  trusted  the  conse- 
quences of  his  procedure  to  God.  There  is  some- 
thing sublime,  as  there  always  is  in  such  phenom- 
ena, in  the  assurance  of  tliis  youthful  hero  that  he 
may  trust  the  end  with  an  unseen  Power.  He  has 
only  to  do  liis  duty  amidst  the  intricacies  of  his 
lot,  and  an  invisible  Friend  \vi\l  care  for  the  rest. 
He  has  no  fear  of  losing  his  head.  If  he  must 
lose  it,  be  it  so.     There  is  another  thing  which  he 


184  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^iJVIENT. 

fears  more.  He  asks  for  but  ten  days,  however, 
to  show  who  is  iii  the  right.  He  will  stake  his 
chances  on  ten  days  of  prayer.  A  short  time  often 
shows  on  which  side  of  things  God  stands.  The 
powers  wliich  prayer  brings  to  the  front  often 
move  quickly.  God  loves  speed  in  decisions  for 
him. 

The  great  thing  which  a  young  man  needs  in  a 
•  crisis  of  temptation  is  to  declare  Jot  the  rig]  it 
quickly.  Leave  no  time  for  temptation  to  accu- 
mulate. Then  intrust  consequences  to  God.  It 
often  requires  a  great  deal  of  character  to  do  that ; 
not  only  a  religious  principle,  but  a  strong  charac- 
ter back  of  that.  To  be  content,  in  a  crisis,  with 
the  single  thought  of  duty,  is  one  of  the  grandest 
things  in  history.  Yet  a  child  can  do  it.  God 
never  disappoints  that  trust.  When  a  young  man 
throws  himself  headlong  into  the  sea  of  tempta- 
tion, with  only  the  one  spar  of  duty  to  lay  hold 
of,  God  is  there  to  uplift  and  bear  him  over  the 
billows.  In  grasping  duty,  he  grasps  a  living  and 
almighty  hand. 

There  is  an  old  book,  yet  extant  in  some  of  our 
libraries,  which  tells  the  story  of  an  old  man  who 
was  the  warrior-poet  of  his  tribe.  He  had  seen 
much  of  life,  and  been  conversant  with  many  lands. 
He  had  stood  in  the  cottages  of  shepherds  and  in 
the  courts  of  kings :  dens  and  caves  were  not  un- 
known to  his  checkered  career.  The  literature  of 
his  age  was  familiar  to  him  :  he  had  been  no  mean 


ANCIENT   MODEL   OF   TEIMPEKANCE.  185 

contributor  to  its  treasures.  At  length  when,  near 
the  end  of  his  days,  his  countr3^men  gathered  rev- 
erently around  him  to  listen  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
old  soldier  in  the  forms  of  Eastern  song,  he 
summed  up  the  result  of  his  long  experience  of  the 
ways  of  God  with  men  in  these  words :  "  I  have 
been  young,  and  now  am  old,  yet  have  I  not  seen 
the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  bread." 
When  a  young  man  is  called  to  hazard  somctliing 
that  is  dear  to  him  at  the  call  of  duty,  he  can  find 
in  all  the  literature  of  the  ages  no  anchor  that 
grapples  more  securely  in  the  storms  of  life  than 
this  testimony  of  the  old  man  of  Mount  Zion. 

III.  What  were  the  results  of  Daniel's  fidelity 
in  his  own  experience  ?  These  must  now  be  said 
in  few  words.  By  his  temperance  he  gained  a 
healthy  body.  It  gave  him  athletic  sinews  and 
pure  blood.  It  secured  to  liim  what  many  young 
men  value  more,  —  a  fresh  complexion  and  the  look 
of  manly  courage.  No  blotches  on  his  face  blabbed 
of  secret  vices.  His  was  a  countenance  before 
wliich  a  pure  woman's  eye  would  not  fall.  He 
gained  also  that  "richest  boon  of  a  good  man's 
life,"  —  an  unsullied  conscience.  He  slept  and 
waked,  and  waked  and  slept,  at  peace  with  God. 

In  that  brief  trial  of  liis  youth,  he  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  a  robust,  religious  manhood.  He  laid 
then  the  train  which  led  to  a  long  and  splendid 
career  of  courtly  usefulness.  The  mysterious 
power  which  subsequently  closed  the  mouths  of 


186  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA^rRNT. 

lions  for  his  safety  l)egan  at  this  time  to  gather 
around  liis  person.  In  this  early  and  brief  frat^- 
ment  of  his  life,  he  settled  the  future  of  liis  pro- 
fessional career  as  a  prophet  of  the  living  (iod. 
Those  ten  short  days  secured  to  him  a  i)lace  in 
the  world's  history,  in  which  he  is  destined  to  live 
in  the  grateful  and  reverent  affections  of  mankind 
forever.  Who  cares  now  for  the  Chaldoean  mon- 
arch and  his  haughty  court?  They  live  to-day 
in  the  world's  memory  only  because  this  young 
Hebrew  seer  has  condescended  to  speak  of  them. 
As  one  of  the  authors  of  the  word  of  God,  and 
one  of  the  great  actors  in  the  history  of  God's 
Church,  he  is  to  live  while  time  lasts.  Men  of  all 
.ages  will  inquire  for  him  in  heaven.  They  will 
point  him  out,  one  to  another,  as  the  interpreter 
of  the  "handwriting  on  the  wall."  Children 
there  will  seek  him  out  as  "'the  man  of  the  lions' 
den."  The  redeemed  of  all  times  will  revere  him 
as  one  of  God's  great  ministers  and  chosen  friends. 
The  foundation  of  this  magnificent  destiny,  ex- 
tending into  two  worlds,  was  built  far  back  in 
those  few  days  —  not  longer  than  a  boy's  holidays 
—  in  which  the  character  of  the  young  man  was 
proved,  and  his  principles  tried,  as  a  friend  of  tem- 
perance and  the  cliild  of  conscience. 


THE   LOST  BIBLE. 

And  when  they  brouglit  out  the  money  tliat  was  brought  into 
tiie  Inmae  of  the  Lord,  Hilkiah  tlie  priest  found  a  hook  of  the 
law  of  the  Lord  given  by  Moses.  And  the  king  commanded 
Ililkiah.  and  Ahikaiu  the  sou  of  Shaphau.  and  Altdon  the  son  of 
Micah,  and  Shai)hau  the  seribc,  and  Asaiah  a  servant  of  the 
king's,  saying:  Go,  inquire  of  the  Lord  for  me,  and  for  them  that 
are  h'ft  in  Israel  and  in  Judah,  eoneerniug  tht^  words  of  the  book 
that  is  found:  for  great  is  the  wrath  of  tlie  Lord  that  is  poured 
out  upon  us,  because  our  fathers  have  not  kept  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  to  do  after  all  that  is  written  in  this  book. —2  Chrox. 
xxxiv.  14,  20,  21. 

TIIE  apoeniihal  historian  of  Judaea  extols  the 
memory  of  King  Josiah  as  being  "sweet  as 
honey  in  all  mouths,  and  as  music  at  a  banquet 
of  wine."  Tliis  Oriental  eulogy  is  due  largely  to 
his  agency  in  the  recovery  of  the  lost  Bible  of  his 
kingdom. 

Few  more  remarkable  events  can  happen  in  a 
nation's  historv  than  the  loss  of  the  sacred  book 
of  its  religion.  Nations  have  deliberately  aban- 
doned the  faith  of  their  fathers,  and  adopted  a 
new  religion.  But  the  loss  of  a  religion  from  a 
nation's  memory^  so  that  its  sacred  book,  when 
recovered,  is  welcomed  as  a  novelty,  is  an  event 
seldom  if  ever  paralleled  outside  of  Judsean  annals. 

187 


/ 

^        STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

/Y[\Q  remedy  of  such  a  loss  is  justly  regurdod  as 
the  great  event  of  the  reign  of  Josiah. 

Scarcely  can  a  more  sublime  scene  for  a  great 
historic  painting  be  conceived  of,  than  that  of  this 
youthful  monarch,  standing  amidst  the  assembled 
magnates  of  his  kingdom,  and  leaning  against  a 
piUar  of  tlie  temple,  while  he  reads  to  the  aston- 
ished crowd  brouj^ht  together  by  the  news  of  the 
discovery,  the  whole  book  of  Deuteronomy,  from 
beginning  to  end. 

No  wonder  that  the  devout  monarch  rent  his 
robe,  and  the  people  were  overwhelmed  at  the 
anathemas  which  thev  had  brou'dit  down  upon 
themselves  and  their  children  by  permitting  the 
religion  of  their  fathers  to  pass  utterly  out  of  the 
traditions  of  the  kingdom. 

We  may  make  an  instructive  use  of  this  scene, 
by  inquiring  u'hat  we  nliould  lose  if  we  should  part 
with  the  Christian  Scriptures  and  with  all  the  insti- 
tutions and  blessini/s  for  ivhich  we  are  indebted  to 
them.  We  appreciate  a  treasure  most  thoroughly 
when  we  have  lost  it.  We  realize  the  value  of  a 
fortinie,  of  health,  of  a  friend,  of  a  good  name, 
most  keenly,  when  they  have  gone  from  us. 
"  Blessings  brighten  as  they  take  their  flight." 

Infidels  often  charge  us  with  childishness  in 
loving  our  Bible  as  we  do.  ''  Why  care  so  much 
for  a  book?"'  they  say;  "why  revere  so  devoutly 
an  antiquated  volume  which  the  world  has  out- 
lived, whose  fables  children  marvel  at,  and  wise 


THE   LOST   BIBLE.  189 

men  laugh  at?"  The  best  answer  to  these  thmgs 
is  to  imagine  that  the  worhl  had  k^st  "  the  book," 
and  had  h)st  with  it  all  that  it  has  given  to  man- 
kind. Would  that  be  a  thing  for  wi^e  men  to 
laugh  at,  and  wits  to  jeer  at? 

1.  In  the  loss  of  the  Bible  and  its  fruits,  we 
sliould  lose  the.  knowledge  of  the  true  God.  History 
proves  this  be^'ond  reasonable  dispute.  An  un- 
answerable argument  for  the  fact  of  a  revelation 
from  God,  is  the  fact  that  the  world  needs  one  to 
assure  it  that  there  is  a  God.  God  must  speak, 
or  man  does  not  find  him.  Men  are  like  lost 
children  searching  in  the 'darkness  for  their  father 
tind  their  fathers  house.  He  is  searcliing  for  them 
too ;  but  they  do  not  recognize  him  till  they  hear 
his  voice,  calling  their  names  in  the  wilderness  or 
in  the  fog.  When  we  are  taunted  with  the  fact 
that  ours  is  the  religion  of  a  book,  the  answer  is 
sufiicient,  that  mankind  needs  a  book  to  keep  alive 
in  the  earth  the  knowledge  of  a  spiritual  and  per- 
sonal God.  Blot  out  the  Bible  and  its  effects  from 
the  world's  history,  and  we  fall  back  by  slow  but 
sure  gradations  into  the  condition  of  the  most  de- 
based of  African  tribes.  Serpents  and  monkeys 
become  our  deities.  We  are  fortunate  above  many 
of  our  fellow-men,  if  we  rise  so  high  as  to  pray  to 
the  golden  globe  of  fire  which  rises  every  morning 
over  our  eastern  hills. 

2.  By  the  loss  of  the  Scriptures  and  their  results 
from  the  knowledge  of  mankind,  we  should  lose, 


190  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^VMEXT. 

sooner  or  later,  our  institutions  of  benevolence. 
Benevolence  on  any  large  scale,  and  in  the  form 
of  permanent  institutions,  and  for  all  classes  of 
mankind,  is  a  biblical  idea.  Hospitals,  asylums 
for  the  insane,  retreats  for  the  fatherless  and  for 
widows,  and  the  thousand  kindred  forms  in  which 
charity  to  the  unfortunate  and  the  poor  has  ex- 
pressed itself  in  Christian  lands,  are  among  the 
trophies  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. , 

The  sporadic  and  fitful  attempts  of  charity  to 
express  itself  in  heathen  institutions  do  not  de- 
serve mention  by  the  side  of  the  beneficent  rec- 
ords of  Clu'istianity.  A  heathen  philosopher,  once 
visiting  the  country,  was  conducted  through  many 
of  yur  public  buildings.  When  he  had  received 
our  hospitality,  and  was  about  to  return,  he  said 
to  a  friend,  "  Your  prisons,  and  your  dungeons, 
and  your  scaffolds,  and  your  armies,  I  understand  : 
my  country  can  outdo  you  in  such  things;  but 
your  orphan-asylums  and  old  men's  homes  aston- 
ish me,  and  your  homes  for  old  women  would 
seem  to  m}-  people  ridicidous."" 

Even  De  Tocqueville,  coming  from  a  papal 
country,  where  the  Scriptures  are  padlocked,  was 
amazed  to  see  charity  extended  in  this  Bible  land 
to  criminals.  Our  societies  for  reform  of  prison 
discipline  were  a  novelty  to  him.  Said  he,  "In 
m}-  country,  once  a  rascal,  always  a  rascal.  You 
do  things  differently."  Yes,  we  do  thinjrs  taught 
by  the  example  of  Ilini  wlio  ate  with  publicans 
and  sinners. 


THE  LOST   BIBLE.  191 

It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  charity, 
in  the  form  of  almsgiving,  cannot  exist  without 
the  Bi])le.  Heathenism  has  ofteji  made  that  a 
condition  of  salvation.  Hospitals  and  houses  of 
refuge  are  not  unknown  to  Buddhism.  But 
charity  systematized,  charity  extended  into  all  the 
sinuosities  of  social  life,  charity  founded  on  the 
principle  of  the  common  brotherliood  of  man,  can- 
not exist  where  the  Bible  is  unknown.  The 
brotherhood  of  man  is  a  biblical  idea.  It  is  re- 
vealed from  heaven.  The  popular  mind  of  the 
race  has  never  originated  it  when  left  to  work  out 
its  own  theories  of  society.  Moreover,  even  such 
forms  of  benevolence  as  do  exist  in  heathen  lands 
do  not  stand  the  assaults  of  human  selfishness,  in 
the  long-run,  unless  re-enforced  by  the  religion  of 
the  Scriptures.  The  drift  of  heathen  civilization 
is  downward,  not  upward.  Nothing  but  the  word 
of  God  has  restorative  force  enough,  as  a  humaniz- 
ing and  civilizing  power,  to  arrest  that  decline, 
and  give  to  the  principle  of  benevolence  a  perma- 
nent and  sovereign  sway  in  social  institutions. 

A  pamphlet  lies  upon  my  table,  of  more  than 
three  hundred  octavo  pages,  which  contains  little 
else  than  the  titles,  with  brief  explanatory  notes, 
of  the  charitable  institutions  of  the  city  of  New 
York  alone.  The  combined  literatures  of  Greece 
and  Rome  never  produced  a  volume  like  that. 
They  never  could.  The  ancient  republics  con- 
tained in  their  palmiest  days  no  material  for  the 
production  of  such  a  work. 


192  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Infanticide,  the  exposure  of  superannuated  par- 
ents, slavery,  human  sacrLfices,  and  cannibalism, 
are  ultimately  the  usages  and  institutions  in  which 
human  nature  expresses  the  drift  of  its  selfish  in- 
stincts when  untaught  by  a  revelation  from  God. 
It  requires  only  time  enough  for  those  instincts  to 
come  to  their  maturity  in  a  finished  depravity,  to 
work  out  the  extinction  of  organized  benevolence. 
Over  against  such  residts,  we  now  find  more  than 
ten  thousand  charitable  associations  in  the  single 
State  of  New  York.  Every  one- of  these  would 
pass  out  of  existence  if  we  should  strike  out  of 
the  civilization  of  the  Empire  State  the  Christian 
Scriptures  and  their  natural  products. 

The  State  of  jNIassachusetts  has  expended  more 
than  two  millions  of  dollars  upon  a  single  asylum 
for  the  insane.  Banish  the  Bible  from  the  schools 
and  the  homes  and  the  character  of  Massachusetts, 
and  in  less  than  the  life  of  three  generations  we 
should  have  here  a  people  to  whom  taxation  for 
such  a  purpose,  beyond  the  need  of  caging  the 
insane  like  tigers,  would  be  denounced  as  tyranny. 
It  is  not  yet  a  hundred  years  since  the  insane  and 
wild  beasts  were  treated  alike  in  some  parts  of 
Europe.  Strike  out  the  Bible  from  our  history^ 
and  every  such  asylum,  and  all  kindred  institutions 
with  which  the  State  is  dotted  from  Berkshire  to 
the  sea,  would  give  place  to  institutions  and  cus- 
toms of  organic  selfishness,  and  ultimately  of  bar- 
barian cruelt}-.     The  spirit  of  the  Bible  must  be 


THE  LOST  BIBLE.  193 

in  the  homes  of  a  people,  and  its  sacred  words 
on  the  lips  of  their  children,  and  its  humane 
spirit  in  their  hearts,  before  society  and  govern- 
ment can  develop  themselves  on  any  large  scale 
in  the  forms  of  organized  benevolence. 

Conceive,  then,  of  a  sovereign  state  in  which, 
from  end  to  end,  should  be  found  not  one  hospital ; 
not  one  retreat  for  the  insane ;  not  one  home  for 
fpiendless  and  aged  women ;  not  one  asylum  for 
orphans;  not  one  house  for  abandoned  children; 
not  one  infirmary  for  mcurable  invalids ;  not  one 
asylum  for  the  blind;  not  one  refuge  for  fallen 
women ;  not  one  school  for  the  deaf  and  dumb ; 
n*ot  a  spot  where  Laura  Bridgman  could  find  a 
friend ;  not  one  institution  for  the  care  of  idiots ; 
not  one  provident  society ;  not  one  almshouse  ;  not 
one  sanitarium  for  the  cure  of  inebriates ;  not  one 
association  for  the  emplojTuent  of  street- Arabs ; 
not  one  mission-school ;  not  one  sewing-school ;  not 
one  society  for  the  protection  of  emigrants ;  not  one 
home  for  sailors,  not  one  for  soldiers ;  not  so  much 
as  one  little  "  Shoe  and  Stocking  Society,"  such  as 
once  honored  the  North  End  of  Boston,  —  conceive, 
I  say,  of  such  a  sovereign  commonwealth,  and,  in 
place  of  these,  imagine  it  dotted  all  over,  as  it 
must  be,  with  prisons  and  penitentiaries  and  scaf- 
folds and  pillories  and  whipping-posts,  with  rum- 
shops  at  every  corner  to  furnish  material  for  these 
grim  expedients  of  justice ;  and  you  have  some 
faint  picture  of  what  Massachusetts  would  be  if 


194  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA3IENT. 

she  could  have  existed  at  all  without  the  infusion 
of  the  Bible  as*  her  life-blood  into  the  framework 
of  her  civilization. 

3,  In  the  loss  of  the  Bible  and  its  fruits,  we 
should  sooner  or  later  suffer  the  loss  of  our  matitu- 
t'wm  for  popular  education.  Here,  again,  it  would 
be  untrue  to  say  that  heathenism  is  of  necessity 
and  always  barbarism.  Culture  has  existed  without 
a  revelation  from  heaven.  School!;j  are  not  the 
product  of  the  Bible  only.  But  it  is  beyond 
question,  that  jwpular  education  is  of  biblical  ori- 
gin. Besides  the  impotence  of  heathenism  to 
sustain  even  such  culture  as  it  creates,  and  to 
prevent  the  relapse  of  the  race  mto  barbarian 
ignorance,  it  is  a  truism  that  other  than  Christian 
religions  build  themselves  on  the  ignorance  of  the 
wa^fses.  Even  Greek  and  Roman  civilization  — 
the  most  brilliant  that  man  ever  framed  without 
the  aid  of  a  revelation  —  knew  no  such  thing  as 
that  which  we  understand  by  the  education  of  the 
people.  Cicero  was  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  enlightened  and  liberal  statesman  the  world 
ever  saw  outside  of  the  biblical  circle  of  civiliza- 
tion. Yet  no  man  has  ever  lived  in  whose  mind 
was  more  profoundly  rooted  the  aristocratic  idea 
that  education  is  for  the  few,  and  ignorance  for 
the  many ;  ease  and  leisure  for  the  few,  and  toil 
and  slavery  for  the  many. 

Heathenism  everywhere  assumes  that  the  people 
exist  to  be  governed,  and  that,  to  be  governed 


THE  LOST   BIBLE.  195 

well,  they  must  be  kept  iii  ignorance.  Voltaire 
betrayed  his  want  of  the  biblical  idea  of  culture 
in  saying,  "The  people  must  have  broadband 
amusement.     But  do  not  teach  them  to  reason." 

The  drift  of  culture  without  the  spirit  of  the 
Bible  in  the  heart  is  seen  in  the  hostility  of  the 
ancient  governor  of  Virginia  to  the  spirit  of  New 
England,  which  he  expressed  by  thanking  God 
that  Virginia  had  no  free  schools,  and  praying  that 
she  might  never  have  such  "pests."  That  is 
human  nature  when  educated  in  igfnorance  of  or 
hostility  to  the  spmt  of  the  Scriptures. 
.  Witness  the  testimony  of  the  Romish  Church. 
Locking  up  the  Scriptures  and  fighting  free  schools 
go  hand  in  hand.  The  Vatican  has  one  of  the 
most  costly  libraries  in  Italy ;  but  a  traveller  who 
visits  it  sees  only  the  blind  oaken  doors  which 
shut  it  in.  Education  there  is  for  the  few  only, 
and  for  them  only  by  permission  of  authority.  So 
it  is  the  world  over.  The  free  Bible  and  the  free 
school  stand  aiyl  fall  together. 

Add  to  this  the  putrescent  tendencies  of  society, 
when  not  counteracted  by  the  antiseptic  power 
of  Christianity,  and  the  ine\'itable  sequence  of 
the  loss  of  the  Scriptures  must  be  the  loss  of  all 
that  should  deserve  the  world's  respect  in  popular 
education.  Imagine,  then,  the  State  of  Virginia, 
with  the  prayers  of  Sir  William  Berkeley  an- 
swered. Picture  to  your,  fancy  the  Old  Dominion 
with  not  one  schoolhouse  in  all  its  broad  domain ; 


106  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAJVIENT. 

not  one  college  or  university  or  seminary  for  cither 
sex,  which  should  be  open  to  free  access  from  the 
lower  and  middle  classes  of  society.     Imagine  that 
it  had  not  one  newspaper  printed  in  the  mother 
tongue ;   not  one   free  library ;    not   one   popular 
lyceum  ;  not  a  popular  lecture  given  on  either  side 
of  the  Blue  Ridge  from  year's  end  to  j^ear's  end ; 
not  an  institute  of  teachers  ever  held  there ;  not 
one  pruiting-press  for  the  publishing  of  popular 
information ;  not  so  much  as  a  Farmer's  Almanac 
seen  anywhere ;  not  a  speech  delivered  from  the 
stump  to  enlighten  the  people  in  their  civil  duties ; 
not  a  post-office  open  to  any  but  dignitaries  of  the 
State  ;    not   a    telegraph-pole    erected   within    its 
borders:    in  a  word,  give  back  the  old  Virginia 
plantations  to  the  savages  from  whom  they  were 
bought  or  plundered,  and  you  get  some  dim  idea 
of  what  a  great  country  like  ours  would  be  if  the 
w^ord   of   God   were   expunged   from   its   history. 
That  our  land  is  any  tlnng  better  than  that  to-day, 
as  the  abode  of  popular  science  and  general  cul- 
ture, we  owe  to  the  fact  that  Sir  William's  prayers 
were  not  answered,  but  a  free  Bible  was  left  to 
work  out  its  own  fruits  in  a  free  press  and  free 
schools. 

4.  By  the  loss  of  the  Scriptures  and  their  crea- 
tions, we  should  sooner  or  later  part  with  our  in- 
stitutions of  civil  liberty.  History  shows  that  the 
great  charter  of  freedom  in  the  world  is  the  word 
of  God.     The  great  free  nations  of  the  earth  are 


THE  LOST   BIBLE.  197 

the  great  Christian  nations.  And  of  those  the 
most  free  are  the  great  Protestant  peoples  wlio 
keep  God's  word  clear  from  the  dominion  of  priests. 
The  institutes  of  Moses  are  marvellously  imbued 
with  the  principles  of  our  own  republic.  The 
principle  of  our  town-meeting  is  found  in  one 
of  the  provisions  of  the  Mosaio  code  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  people.  A  volume  has  been  written 
/to  show  the  republicanism  of  the  civil  constitution 
given  by  the  great  Jewish  lawgiver.  Where, 
think  you,  did  Thomas  Jefferson  get  the  idea  of 
democratic  government  which  he  embodied  in  the 
; Declaration  of  Independence?  From  an  obscure 
Baptist  church  in  the  Ijackwoods  of  Virginia. 

Yes,  if  you  would  imagine  a  land  from  whose 
civilization  the  Bible  and  its  products  are  wholly 
lost,  and  faded  from  the  people's  memory,  you 
must  conceive  of  a  land  of  slaves  and  tyrants ;  a 
land  without  a  wi-itten  constitution ;  without  a 
declaration  of  indeiDendence ;  without  a  bill  of 
rights ;  without  trial  by  jury ;  without  an  elective 
franchise ;  without  a  jurisprudence  framed  to  guard 
the  liberties  of  the  citizen ;  without  courts  and 
tribunals  organized  and  managed  in  the  interests 
of  equal  justice  ;  without  legislatures  representative 
of  the  popular  will ;  without  one  of  that  galaxy  of 
institutions  and  unwritten  laws  which  we  deem 
the  glory  of  our  RepubUc.  Every  one  of  these  we 
owe  ultimately  to  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

My  space  fails  me.     It  was  my  purpose  to  show 


108  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^VMEXT. 

that  the  loss  of  the  Bible  and  its  fruit  from  the 
world  would  involve  the  destruction  of  peace  and 
its  attendant  blessings ;  that  ivar  woidd  become 
idtiinately  the  chronic  condition  of  society;  that 
the  modern  idea  of  the  family  would  be  lost;  tliat 
the  institution  of  marriage^  as  we  understand  it, 
would  cease  to  be  ;  that  woman  would  be  reduced 
to  servitude  ;  that  home  would  lose  its  holy  mean- 
ing ;  that  infanticide  would  be  restored ;  that  hiv- 
man  miTifices  to  infernal  deities  would  become  the 
prevalent  form  of  religious  service ;  that  protec- 
tion against  desolating  pestilences  would  become 
impossible ;  that  cannibalism  would  live  again ; 
and,  in  a  word,  that  the  tendencies  of  the  human 
race  to  barbari)<m  in  its  most  brutal  forms  wuukl 
be  revived,  and  that  its  natural  career  woidd  be 
towards  its  own  extinction  on  this  globe.  The 
whole  earth  would  be  subjected  at  last  to  the 
destiny  wliich  overtook  and  had  well-nigh  over- 
whelmed the  savage,  tribes  of  this  Western  conti- 
nent Avhen  Christianity  found  them  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago,  and  towards  which  the  best 
civilization  of  the  world  was  drifting  when  Christ 
was  born. 

One  of  the  great  poets  has  portrayed  the  scene 
in  which  Ii(/ht  should  be  banished  from  the  uni- 
verse. He  describes  the  blotting  out  of  stars  and 
moons  and  suns ;  this  earth  still  wandering  in  the 
blackness  of  the  universal  dark.  He  pictures  men 
living  by  watch-fires.     They  burn  up  their  forests, 


THE  LOST   BIBLE.  199 

their  cities,  their  homes,  their  temples,  and  all 
holy  things,  to  create  a  light  by  which  to  see  each 
other's  faces,  and  get  warmth  against  the  growing 
intensity  of  cold.  Commerce  dies ;  its  qnce  famous 
marts  crowded  with  the  products  of  distant  lands 
are  forsaken :  not  so  much  as  a  blade  of  grass 
grows  in  the  deserted  streets.  Ships  rot  in  their 
harbors.  Sails  which  have  whitened  every  sea 
flap  idly  in  the  dead  night  air.  Men  grow  wolfish 
in  the  universal  woe.  They  curse  each  other,  and 
gnash  their  teeth,  and  howl  for  one  ray  of  light. 
Mothers  turn  savagely  upon  their  youngest-born." 
•No  love,  no  family,  no  home,  survives.  Temples 
of  religion  there  are  none ;  and,  as  for  God,  men 
have  forgotten  but  to  curse  him  and  die. 

Gradually  the  whole  globe  l)ecomes  depopulated. 
It  rolls  in  space  without  inhabitants  save  two  sur- 
vivors, and  they  are  mortal  foes.  Tliey  scrape  to- 
crcther  a  fajrot.and  a  few  dried  leaves,  and  blow 
them  to  a  blaze,  that  they  may  once  see  each 
other's  faces.  Then  with  one  look  of  frenzied 
hate,  and  a  shriek  of  maniacal  fury,  impotent  to 
wreak  itself  except  upon  itself,  they  expire.  So 
human  liistory  is  ended.  Not  a  hand  is  left  to  roll 
up  the  map  of  nations. 

"  The  world  is  void, 

Seasonless,  lierbless,  treeless,  manless,  lifeless, 

A  lump  of  Deatli." 

Such  a  world  would  this  earth  become  if  the 


200  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJSIEXT. 

light  of  the  word  of  God  -were  once  put  out,  and 
all  that  it  has  done  to  illumine  and  elevate  and 
civilize  and  refine  and  redeem  mankind  were 
blotted  forever  from  its  history.  Such  would  be 
the  consequence  of  a  final  and  irremediable  loss 
of  the  Bible. 


GOOD  MEN  WIIO  ARE  NOT  CHURCHMEN. 

,And  Jeremiah  said  imto  the  house  of  the  Rechabites,  Tlius 
Baith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel:  Because  ye  have 
obeyed  the  commaudmeut  of  Jonadab  your  father,  aud  kept  all 
his  precepts,  and  done  according  unto  all  that  he  hath  com- 
manded you;  tlicrefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God 
of  Israel:  Jonadab  the  son  of  Rechab  shall  not  want  a  man 
to  stand  before  me  forever. — Jek.  xxxa*.  18,  19. 

THE  foregoing  title  expresses  in  brief  the  lead- 
ing practical  idea  which  we  derive  from  tliis 
biblical  fragment  about  the  Rechabites.  Opin- 
ions may  not  unreasonal)ly  differ  about  this  singu- 
lar people.  But  as  I  understand  the  scriptural 
notices  of  them,  they  were  not  Israelites  by  birth, 
nor  included  in  the  covenant  of  God  with  his 
peculiar  people.  Yet  they  were  good  men.  They 
recoiled  from  the  wickedness  of  the  world  around 
them.  They  sought,  as  men  are  in  all  ages  prone 
to  do,  to  find  protection  in  ascetic  vows. 

They  saw,  for  instance,  that  intemperance  was 
a  great  and  damning  vice :  therefore  they  vowed 
that  they  would  drink  no  wine.  They  correspond 
Very  nearly,  in  that  respect,  to  the  modern  societies 
of  "  Good  Templars"  and  "  Sons  of  Temperance  ;  " 
that  is,  they  were  pledged  to  the  practice  of  total 

201 


202  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTASIENT. 

nbstinence ;  yet  were  not,  by  virtue  of  that  vow, 
members  of  the  church  of  God. 

They  saw,  also,  that  the  great  cities  of  the 
world  were  the  chief  centres  of  corruption :  there- 
fore they  vowed  to  live  forever  in  tents.  Their 
ancestor  and  founder,  Jonadab,  was  a  Bedouin 
Arab,  as  we  should  call  him.  The  desert  was  his 
home,  and  the  tent  liis  dwelling.  It  was  a  vow  of 
the  sect  to  live  so  forever. 

They  observed,  also,  that  the  possession  of  fixed 
property  was  a  great  temptation  to  men.  They 
would  therefore  have  none  of  it.  Every  man 
bound  himself  not  to  own  a  house,  not  to  buy  a 
field,  not  to  till  a  vineyard.  Like  the  Dominicans 
and  others  of  the  Romish  Church,  they  took  the 
vow  of  poverty,  so  far  as  these  forms  of  worldly 
estate  were  concerned.  They  would  escape  sin  by 
fleeing  from  temptation.    That  was  their  principle. 

These  three  things  seem  to  have  been  the  creed 
of  the  sect :  to  drink  no  wine  ;  to  own  no  fixed 
property ;  to  dwell  in  no  permanent  abodes. 
Their  organization  as  a  tribe  was  clearly  an  at- 
tempt to  live  a  "purer  life  than  the  world  around 
them,  by  cultivating  the  simple  tastes  and  habits 
of  herdsmen,  living  in  tents,  wandering  wherever 
they  could  find  pasturage,  being  much  in  the  open 
air,  and  at  night  sleeping  under  the  resplendent 
skies  of  Arabia. 

But  what  have  these  ancient  "  Good  Templars  " 
to  do  with  the  mission  of  Jeremiah  to  the  kingdom 


GOOD   MEN   WHO   AKE   NOT   CHTJKCHMEN.    203 

of  Judali?  Just  this,  and  no  more  :  they  are  used 
as  a  means  of  reproof.  They  were  faithful  to 
theii*  vows:  the  Jews  were  not.  They  adhered 
to  the  religion  of  their  fathers :  the  Jews  did  not. 
They  were  practically  better  men  and  women  than 
the  average  of  the  world:  the  Jews  were  not. 
They  kept  themselves  clear  fi-om  the  corruptions 
of .tlae  great  metropolitan  cities :  the  Jews  did  not. 
They' practised  the  virtues  of  temperance,  of  plain 
living,  of  frugality,  and  the  kindred  virtues  of 
country  life :  the  Jews  had  given  themselves  up  to 
the  extravagance  and  the  idolatrous  vices  of  the 
gteat  capitals.  So  far  as  we  know,  they  worshipped 
the  true  God :  the  Jews  had  become  so  corrupt  as 
to  worship  a  calf,  a  goat,  a  lizard,  any  thing  that 
an3-body  worshipped ;  they  followed  the  fashions 
in  their  religion. 

The  prophet  therefore  uses  these  "  Good  Tem- 
plars "  as  a  means  of  shaming  the  men  of  Judah 
for  their  wickedness  and  apostasy.  I  do  not  under- 
stand that  he  means  to  give  the  divine  approval  to 
them  as  a  sect ;  or  to  set  the  divine  seal  upon  their 
vows,  as  necessary  to  holy  living ;  nor  even  to  de- 
fend their  total  abstinence.  It  is  a  stretch  of  bibli- 
cal authority,  to  make  this  fragment  an  argument 
for  the  divine  authority  of  temperance-societies. 
Other  scriptures  may  support  them,  but  not  this 
one. 

The  prophet  seems  to  say  to  the  apostate  Jews, 
"  Look,  you  renegade  people  of  God,  look  at  these 


204  STTJDTES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAAfENT. 

Rechabites !  Are  you  not  ashamed  of  yourselves  ? 
They  have  not  had  half  of  your  privileges,  but 
they  outdo  you  iu  right  living.  They  are  consist- 
ent with  their  professions.  They  stick  to  their 
vows.  They  live  up  to  the  light  they  have.  You 
do  neither.  Therefore,  by  the  authority  given  me 
by  the  living  God,  I  tell  you  that  God  will  bless 
them,  and  will  curse  you." 

This  I  take  to  be  the  simple  pivpose  of  this 
introduction  of  the  Rechabites  into  the  word  of 
God.  In  a  nutshell,  the  design  is  to  reprove  had 
men  in  the  Church  hy  contrasting  them  with  good  men 
out  of  the  Church.  The  value  of  such  a  fragment 
in  the  Scriptures  for  practical  use  in  all  ages  may 
be  seen  by  a  brief  notice  of  the  following  hints :  — 

1.  The  popular  criticism  upon  the  Church  is 
true :  "  Better  men  are  out  of  it  than  some  men  in 
ity  There  are  bad  men  in  the  Church,  and  ver}'- 
imperfect  good  ones.  Men  profess  religion  who 
will  cheat  in  a  trade,  who  will  lie  to  cover  the 
cheat,  who  will  take  a  false  oath  to  bolster  the  lie. 
Name  almost  any  crime  that  quick-witted  deprav- 
ity can  invent,  and  doubtless  it  has  been  committed 
by  some  professed  child  of  God.  Prudent  mer- 
chants refuse  credit  to  a  man  who  pleads  his 
standing  in  the  Church  as  a  reason  for  giving  him 
credit.  Christian  ministers,  too,  have  done  their 
full  share  of  deeds  which  have  pierced  the  heart 
of  Christ.  The  chivalrous  and  manly  virtues  in 
some    men   overbalance   the  .Chi-istian   graces   in 


GOOD   MEN   WHO  ARE  NOT   CHURCHMEN.    205 

some  other  men.  There  are  "  Good  Templars " 
and  "  Odd  Fellows  "  and  "  Free  Masons "  who 
make  their  fraternities  substitutes  for  the  Church, 
and  we  cannot  say  that  the  substitution  is  not 
plausible. 

When  the  world  charges  us  with  these  contrasts, 
we  admit  them.  When  we  are  asked  what  we 
have  to  say  for  oui-selves,  we  answer  nothing  in 
defence  of  such  men,  but  bow  oiu*  heads  in  shame. 
We  can  at  best  echo  St.  Paul's  lament,  and  ''  tell 
you  even  weeping,  that  they  are  enemies  to  the 
cross  of  Christ." 

•2.  The  contrast  between  apostates  in  the  Churchy 
and  good  men  out  of  it,  is  an  exception  to  the  general 
fact.  As  the  Rechabites  of  old  were  a  small  and 
exceptional  sect,  no  fair  representative  of  the  hea- 
then world,  so  now  the  good  men  who  are  not 
churchmen  are  not  a  fair  specimen  of  what  men 
naturally  become  who  live  out  of  covenant  with 
God.  As  in  the  Jewish  Church  there  were  men 
and  women  who  were  not  apostates,  so  there  are 
multitudes  in  the  Christian  Church  now  who  do 
not  deserve  the  charge  that  they  are  no  better 
than  other  men.  The  apostates  and  hypocrites  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  good  men  who  are  not 
churchmen  on  the  other,  are  both  exceptions  to 
the  general  law.  It  is  but  fair  to  admit  this.  It  is 
but  just  to  claim  it. 

The  very  fact  that  the  alleged  contrast  attracts 
attention  and  provokes  satire  is  proof  of  this.     If 


206  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAHfENT. 

it  were  the  general  law,  that  the  Church  makes 
men  scoundrels,  and  that  irreligiou  makes  men  the 
pattern  of  all  the  virtues,  the  charge  of  inconsis- 
tency would  disappear.  If  it  were  the  natural 
drift  of  things  that  clergymen  should  be  adulterers, 
thieves,  liars,  drunkards,  the  fact  would  be  accept- 
ed as  the  legitimate  fruit  of  their  profession.  They 
would,  as  a  class,  stand  in  public  esteem  where 
blacklegs  do  now.  Public  opinion  rests  at  last 
upon  the  facts.  In  the  West-India  Islands  and  in 
some  parts  of  South  America  the  Romish  priest- 
hood have,  as  a  dans,  fallen  into  debasing  vices. 
They  drink,  they  lie,  they  swear,  they  gamble, 
they  brawl,  they  are  licentious.  They  suspend 
mass  to  attend  a  horse-race.  These  things  are  so 
common  that  public  sentiment  accepts  them  as  the 
usual  accompaniments  of  the  priestly  function. 
They  have  long  since  ceased  to  excite  remark. 
No  hue-and-cry  is  raised  when  a  priest  is  guilty 
of  these  things.  The  pojiular  proverbs  run  thus  : 
"  As  bad  as  a  priest ; "  "  As  drunk  as  a  friar ; " 
"  As  tricky  as  a  Jesuit,"  and  so  on. 

Such  would  be  the  popular  judgment  the  world 
over,  before  long,  if  the  fact  of  clerical  depravity 
were  universally  true,  or  if  it  were  generally  true 
that  Christian  ministers  are  no  better  than  the 
average  of  men.  It  is  not  true,  and  the  world 
knows,  it.  It  is  a  calumny  which  no  man  who  is 
not  innately  and  thorouglily  dishonest  and  mean 
will   charge   upon   the   clerical   office.     The  man 


GOOD   MEN   WHO  ARE  NOT   CHURCHMEN.    207 

who  has  lost  faith  hi  such  a  body  of  men  and 
women  as  now  compose  the  Protestant  Church  of 
Christendom,  and  hirge  portions  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  must  be  a  man  who  has  lost  faith  in  liim- 
self.  His  loss  of  trust  in  their  virtues  springs 
from  the  loss  of  consciousness  of  those  virtues  in 
his  own  heart.  lie  believes  no  better  because  he 
is  no  better. 

;3.  The  concessions  whicJi  Christians  make  to  cyni- 
cal critics  of  the  Church  need  often  to  he  qualified 
by  loyalty  to  the  brotherhood.  There  is  a  virtue  in 
loyalty  to  one's  guild,  which  truth  and  justice 
sometimes  call  to  the  front. 

There  is  a  tone  of  criticism  of  the  Church  which 
sounds  very  candid,  and  very  faithful,  and  very 
independent  of  clanship,  which,  after  all,  is  un- 
manly and  mean,  simply  because  it  is  not  true. 
Underneath  it,  there  is  a  truckling  to  the  malicious 
judgment  of  the  wicked.  The  faults  of  Christians 
jare  exaggerated.  The  numbers  of  the  hj^ocritical 
are  overrated.  Guilt  is  assumed  on  insufficient 
evidence.  Evidence  which  a  jury  would  scout 
is  deemed  sufficient  to  condemn  a  professor  of 
religion.  Such  accusers  do  not  face  the  accused 
like  men.  They  will  swell  a  secret  into  common 
fame ;  yet,  when  summoned  to  bear  witness,  they 
skulk. 

All  nations  have  a  proverb  about  "the  bird 
that  fouls  its  own  nest."  All  honorable  men 
respect  loyalty  to  one's  own.     The  conditions  of 


208  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Christian  living  in  this  world  are  such  as  to  call 
for  large  practice  of  tliis  virtue.  No  other  body 
of  men  are  so  sure  of  receiving  unjust  judgment 
as  Christians  are.  To  belong  to  the  Chuivh  of 
Christ  is  to  be  a  mark  for  cynics  to  hawk  at,  and 
for  vultures  to  peck  at.  In  simple  fair  pla\',  the 
Church  needs  the  magnanimous  graces  among  its 
own  members.  Does  not  everybody  know  a  pro- 
fessing Christian  who  has  the  inconsistencies  of 
his  brethren  at  his  tongue's  end  always,  and  their 
excellences  never?  That  brother  should  look 
into  "  trades-unions  "  and  "  Masonic  lodges,"'  for 
a  lesson  in  loyalty. 

I  have  somewhere  read  a  legend  of  a  wretched 
man,  one  of  nature's  monstrosities,  the  tip  of 
whose  tongue  was  a  snake's  head.  In  his  sleep 
the  hideous  reptile  lay  coiled  within ;  but  his 
breathing  was  a  low  and  ominous  hiss.  When 
he  woke,  and  attempted  to  speak,  the  monster 
thrust  itself  out  in  wavy  vibrations,  hissing, 
biting,  stinging.  A  fitting  symbol  this  of  men 
who  can  never  find  a  good  thing  to  say  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  Inspired  imagery  resembles 
the  revolting  legend :  •'  They  have  sharpened 
their  tongues  like  a  serpent ;  adder's  poison  is 
under  their  lips.".  Shall  brethren  in  Christ  thrust 
such  venomous  fangs  at  each  other?  AVhen 
tempted  to  misanthropic  judgment  of  a  Christian 
brother,  remember  the  snake-headed  tongue.  The 
truth  is  that  conscious  h3pocrites  in  the  Church 
arc  comparatively  few. 


GOOD   MEN   "WHO   ARE   NOT   CIIURCnMEN.    209 

And  what  of  ministers  of  the  gospel?  I  have 
elsewhere  spoken  of  the  inconsistencies  of  the 
Church  and  her  ministry  with  sufficient  fidelity. 
May  I  now  offset  it  with  a  bit  of  testimony? 
True,  it  is  interested  testimony :  but  no  other  can 
be  founded  on  knowledge  of  the  facts ;  it  must 
pass  for  what  it  is  wortli.  For  more  than  thirty 
years  I  have  known  the  clerical  profession  as  no 
nlan  can  know  it  who  is  not  in  it  and  behind  the 
scenes.  With  more  or  less  of  personal  intimacy, 
I  liave  known  nearly  two  thousand  preachers  of 
the  gospel.  I  know  their  aims,  their  motives, 
their  methods,  their  weaknesses,  their  policies, 
their  secrets ;  for  every  profession  has  its  honora- 
ble secrets  and  its  wise  jiolicies.  And  my  con- 
viction is  that  there  is  not  another  body  of  men 
living,  of  equal  numbers,  the  record  of  whose 
life,  public  and  private,  will  bear  scrutiny  so 
well  as  theirs.  The  testimony  wliich  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  publicly  gave  to  the  character  of  the 
American  missionaries  in  Western  Asia,  in  1860, 
"  they  are  a  marvellous  combination  of  common 
sense  and  piety,"  is  true  of  the  great  body  of 
Protestant  ministers  whom  I  have  known.  Out 
of  the  whole  number,  but  five  have  made  a  wreck 
of  moral  character.  Of  what  other  profession  or 
guild,  equal  in  numbers,  and  chosen  at  random, 
can  that  be  said  *? 

Similar  is   the   testimony  which  any  man  who 
knows  the  facts  will  bear  respecting  the  great  body 


210  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

of  the  Church.  When  men  chiim  that  the  Church 
as  a  body  lias  done  nothing  to  lift  the  standard  of 
human  virtue,  that  Christians  as  a  whole  are  no 
better  than  other  men,  it  is  wrong  by  silence  even 
to  give  in  to  the  caliunny.  It  is  but  just  to  the 
living  and  the  dead  to  protest  that  it  is  not  true. 
The  facts  of  life  do  not  bear  out  such  sweeping 
censures.  To  concede  the  justice  of  them  is  treach- 
ery to  men  and  women  of  whom  the  jvorld  is  not 
worthy.  It  is  a  confession  that  our  Lord  did  not 
know  ?iow  to  lift  this  world  up  into  redeemed  and 
regenerated  life,  when  he  planned  the  doing  of  it 
by  the  agenc}'  and  example  of  the  Church.  It  is 
a  confession  that  his  work,  through  eighteen  cen- 
turies of  churchly  life,  has  been  a  dead  failure. 
Who  believes  this,  except  those  who  wish  to  be- 
lieve it? 

4.  The  virtues  of  good  men  who  are  not  churchmen 
are  due  largely  to  the  salutary  injluence  of  the  Church 
upon  them.  The  Rechabites  owed  their  knowledge 
of  the  true  God  to  the  Jewish  people.  Their  vir- 
tues were  due  to  their  association  with  that  people, 
not  to  their  knowledge  or  practice  of  heathenism 
and  its  fruits.  Similar  is  the  teaching  of  history 
m  all  subsequent  ages.  The  virtues  of  the  world 
in  their  finest  growth  live  upon  the  graces  of  the 
Church. 

A  cannon-ball,  in  its  course  through  the  air, 
moves,  with  a  velocity  only  less  than  its  own,  a 
certain  bulk  of  the  surrounduig  atmosphere.     That 


GOOD   MEN   WHO   ARE   NOT   CHURCHMEN.    211 

"  wind  of  the  ball "  is  sometimes  stroiifj  enough  to 
kn<jck  a  man  flat.  When  j^ou  stand  close  to  an 
express-train  of  cars  at  full  speed,  you  feel  the 
same  phenomenon.  Within  a  certain  distance, 
the  space  around  a  body  in  quick  motion  is  filled 
with  its  momentum,  and  the  air  moves  as  it  moves. 
Similar  is  the  moral  power  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
over  multitudes  who  are  taught  its  principles,  who 
know  its  creed,  who  witness  its  example,  and  whose 
infancy  was  fasliioned  by  its  ordinances.  They 
feel  its  restraining  power  when  they  do  not  bow 
to  its  saving  power. 

Christian  /cZca.s  govern  the  public  opinion  of  the 
world  to-day,  though  spiritual  religion  is  by  no 
means  in  the  ascendant.  It  takes  but  a  small  mi- 
nority of  earnest  believers  to  carry  with  them  the 
speculative  belief  of  a  large  majority.  So  nations 
populous  and  mighty  are  nominally  Christian  to- 
day, because  they  contain  a  nucleus  of  spiritual 
Cliristians.  These  keep  alive  the  Christian  reli- 
gion as  a  power  of  restraint,  of  culture,  of  refine- 
ment, of  ci^'ilization,  of  virtue,  to  multitudes  to 
whom  it  is  not  yet  a  power  of  salvation.  That 
such  men  are  what  they  are,  they  owe  to  the  living 
faith  that  is  in  the  Church.  They  owe  it  to  godly 
mothers  and  praying  fathers,  and  Christian  wives, 
and  the  recollections  of  their  own  Christian  cliild- 
hood.  That  among  them  are  found  Christians  in 
heart  who  are  not  such  by  profession,  they  owe  to 
the  more  positive  and  consistent  ones,  who  do  not 


212  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

fear  to  profess  before  tlie  world  the  faith  they  cher- 
ish in  secret.  The  Church  of  Christ  achieves  thus 
a  vast  amount  of  unacknowledged  conquest. 

The  moral  virtues  in  their  ripened  forms  live  in 
this  world  on  the  life-blood  of  the  Christian  graces. 
Christian  sap  is  flowing  through  the  whole  tree  of 
European  and  American  civilization.  Profound 
and  iar-reaching  is  the  principle,  "  Ye  are  the  salt 
of  the  earth."  • 

5.  While  God  blesses  goodness  and  the  right 
wherever  he  finds  them,  he  still  depends  for  them 
chicfiy  upon  the  Church  which  he  has  created  for  all 
time.  History,  ill  this  old  Judnjan  line,  seems  to 
turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  salute  respectfully  these 
ancient  sons  of  temperance.  Yet  it  speedily  re- 
turns again  to  the  old  channel  of  the  Church  of 
God.  No  sect  is  taken  as  a  substitute  for  the 
Church.  God  does  not  abandon  his  people,  and 
take  up  Rechabites  in  their  stead.  He  knew  his 
own  mind  when  he  founded  the  Church,  and  said 
to  Abraham,  "  In  thee  shall  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  be  blessed." 

Traces  are  still  found,  in  the  wilds  of  Arabia, 
of  the  descendants  of  the  ancient  tribe  of  Jonadab, 
in  fulfilment,  as  it  is  believed,  of  Jeremiah's  proph- 
ecy. But  how  little  has  been  the  Rechabite  influ- 
ence on  the  world!  We  have  to  search  biblical 
antiquities  to  find  it.  The  world  knows  nothing 
of  its  liistory.  Tiu-n  to  a  secular  historian,  and 
you  find  that  a  few  lines  are  all  that  he  thinks  it 


GOOD   MEN   WHO   ARE   NOT   CHURCHIMEN.    213 

necessary  to  give  to  this  ancient  sect ;  and  those 
only  because  it  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  Com- 
pare the  article  "  Rechabites "  with  the  article 
"  Christianity  "  in  any  good  encyclopsedia.  Just 
such  is  the  proportion  of  the  good  that  is  in  the 
world  to  the  good  that  is  in  the  Church,  in  respect 
to  the  strength  of  each  as  a  spiritual  power,  and 
their  value  to  the  coming  ages. 

■  The  great  stream  of  civilization  and  redemption 
has  flowed  doAvn  the  ages  of  the  past,  not  through 
any  accidental  and  wayside  canal  of  Rechabite  or 
Masonic  virtue,  but  tlirough  the  great  river-bed  of 
the  Christian  Church.  Here  are  the  living  foun- 
tains. Here  are  treasured  the  truths  which  the 
world  most  needs  to  know.  Here  are  garnered 
the  promises  which  gild  with  golden  radiance  the 
world's  future.  The  hope  of  all  coming  time  is  in 
this  Church  of  the  li\'ing  God. 

6.  The  principles  we  have  thus  briefly  glanced 
at  suggest  that  heaven  is  full  of  surprises  for  tJwse 
loho  reach  it.  Said  an  aged  clergyman  when 
drawing  near  to  that  world,  "I  expect  to  find 
there  some  who  I  have  never  thought  would  get 
there;  and  I  expect  to  miss  some  whom  I  have 
supposed  to  be  sure  of  it."  Yes,  surprises  of  this 
sort  await  us.  Not  every  one  that  saith,  "  Lord, 
Lord,"  shall  enter  there.  Many  who  did  not  say 
"Lord,  Lord,"  will  be  found  to  have  given  the 
cup  of  cold  water  to  some  disciple.  God  only 
knows  his  own.     He  will  gather  them  from  the 


214  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TEST^OfENT. 

four  winds.     Not  one  will  escape  his  eye.    He  will 
need  no  church-records  to  inform  him  who  they 
are.     He  will  need  no  marble  monument  to  tell 
liim  where  their  dust  reposes.     He  will  need  no 
epitaph   to   tell   him  what   they  were.     Not   one 
bruised  reed  of   virtue  will  be   broken,  not  one 
flickering  flame  or  buried  spark  of  grace  put  out, 
by  his  avenging  hand,  in  the  great  day.     Yet  it  is 
to  be  a  "gi-eat  and  terrible  day."     Fearful  disap- 
pointments will  l)e  found  there.     Said  a  devout 
but   trembling   saint    on   his    death-bed,    "There 
must  be  some  tremendous  examples   held  up  to 
the  universe  :  what  if  I  should  be  one  of  them  !  " 
It  becomes  us  all  to  walk  humbly  before  God. 
Professions  of  religion  cannot  save  us.     Vows  in 
the  Church  or  out  of  it  cannot  save  us.     The  con- 
trite and  believing  heart,  —  this,  and  this  only,  is 
the  place  in  which  God  dwells.     This  is  his  li\dng 
temple.     This  is  more  to  God  than  the  pillar  of 
fire  and  the  pillar  of  cloud, — more  than  the  Shechi- 
nah   and   the    holy  of  holies.      This   is   more  to 
Christ  than  church  and  clergy  and   sacraments. 
"I   heard  a  great  voice   out   of   heaven  saying: 
Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  wew,  and  he 
will  dwell  with  them.     God  himself  shall  be  with 
them,  and  be  their  God." 


INTERTWINING  OF   GOD'S   PLANS  WITH 
THE  PLANS   OF   MEN. 

But  the  army  of  the  Chaldaeans  pursued  after  the  king,  and 
overtook  Zedekiah  in  the  plains  of  Jericho;  and  all  his  army  was 
scattered  from  him.  Then  they  took  the  kinjc,  and  carried  him 
up  unto  the  king  of  Babylon  to  Riblah  in  the  land  of  Ilamath; 
where  he  gave  judgment  upon  him.  And  the  king  of  Babylon 
slew  the  sons  of  Zedekiah  before  his  eyes:  he  slew  also  all  the 
princes  of  Judah  in  Riblah.  Then  he  put  out  the  eyes  of  Zede- 
kiah ;  and  the  king  of  Babylon  bound  him  in  chains,  and  carried 
him  to  Babylon,  and  put  him  in  prison  till  the  day  of  his  death. 
—  Jer.  lii.  8^11. 

THE  title  of  one  of  the  most  useful  of  modern 
sermons  is,  "  Every  Man's  Life  a  Plan  of  God." 
The  story  of  the  Judsean  captivity  brings  to  view, 
as  every  other  great  event  in  history  does,  these 
two  distinct  lines  of  purpose,  —  the  line  of  God 
and  the  line  of  man.  To  effect  God's  will  in  the 
fulfilment  of  ancient  prophecy,  some  one  man  must 
take  the  leadership  of  the  people.  Some  one  man 
must  head  their  downfall.  Some  one  man  must 
lead  their  sad  procession  into  bondage.  Some  one 
man  must  suffer  there  the  barbarities  of  ancient 
warfare ;  must  see  his  children  slaughtered  one  by 
one  before  Ms  eyes ;  must  suffer  worse  than  death 
in  the  loss  of  his  own  sight ;  and  must  die  at  last 

215 


216  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJVIENT. 

a  dethroned  prince,  a  childless  father,  a  blind  old 
man,  in  an  enem^-'s  country,  and  in  a  dnngeon. 
Yet  the  great  wheels  of  Providence  moved  on 
calmly  and  relentlessly,  crushing  out  that  one  life 
as  if  no  Ijcing  in  the  universe  cared  for  it.  No 
friendly  ear  seemed  to  hear  the  death-cry  of  the 
victim. 

Of  the  many  truths  which  the  passage  before 
us  teaches,  this^  mysterious  intervulutlon  of  the  j^lans 
of  God  with  the  plans  of  men  will  see^n  to  some 
minds  the  most  impressive. 

1.  The  enclosure  of  the  plans  of  men  within 
the  plans  of  God  is  such  that  commonly  men  appear 
to  be  left  very  much  to  themselves.  This  unfortu- 
nate prince,  wliose  lot  it  was  to  close  the  line  of 
independent  monarchs  on  the  throne  df  Judah, 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  overruled  by  any 
visible  network  of  divine  purposes,  any  more  than 
the  humblest  beggar  in  Judaea.  When  the  histo- 
rian came  to  record  his  life,  the  record  would 
naturally  run,  "  Such  are  the  chances  of  war ;  such 
is  the  fate  of  unfortunate  princes  in  barbarous 
times." 

Yet  all  the  while  a  plan  of  God  enveloped  him, 
which  touched  and  checked  at  all  points  his  plans, 
directed  his  working  to  God's  ends,  and  wrought 
out  over  and  around  him  a  chapter  of  universal 
history,  wliich  was  to  concern  the  world  in  distant 
ages,  and  nations  yet  unborn.  Nearly  twenty-five 
hundred  years  have  come  and  gone  since  then ; 


ENTERTWrNTNG   OF   GOD'S   PLANS.  217 

more  than  seventy  generations  have  lived  and 
died ;  yet  on  the  first  Lord's  Day  of  the  month  of 
May,  this  year,  millions  of  people  in  many  lands, 
making  a  belt  aronnd  the  globe,  were  pondering 
the  fate  of  that  blind  old  man  in  the  dungeons  of 
Chaldroa. 

Such  is  the  sublime  involution  of  every  human 
life  with  the  purposes  of  God.  So  noiseless  is  his 
-working,  that,  when  men  are  defeated,  his  affencv 
is  not  forced  upon  their  notice.  Tliey  need  not 
see  him  if  they  choose  not  to  see  him.  Common- 
ly they  do  not  see  him.  They  say  of  their  misfor- 
tunes, "  Luck  was  against  me."  "  Such  are  life's 
chances."     "  We've  lost  the  game." 

2.  In  lea^dng  men  to  themselves  in  the  forming 
and  working  of  their  own  plans,  divine  control  does 
not  prevent  the  occurrence  of  very  shocking  catastro- 
phes. Look  at  this  miserable  old  Jew.  His  con- 
temporaries saw  nothing  unusual  in  liis  fate. 
That  he  should  be  vanquished  in  war,  that  he 
should  be  caught  in  his  flight,  that  he  should  be 
marched  into  captivity,  that  he  should  be  thrown 
into  a  dungeon,  that  he  should  be  chained  like  a 
wolf,  that  his  children  should  be  butchered  before 
his  eyes,  that  those  eyes  should  be  gouged  out  by 
the  hangman,  and  that  he  should  linger  out  his 
wretched  old  age,  a  blind  captive  and  a  disgraced 
prince,  who  could  only  long  to  die,  excited  no  sur- 
prise. That  was  the  usage  of  the  age.  Such 
were   the   contingencies   of  royal  birth,  and  the 


218  STUDIES   OF   TPTE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

chances  of  war.  lie  knew  it  beforehand.  Tlie 
world  said  of  him,  ".  ITe  took  his  chances,  and  they 
ran  against  liini.  He  phiyed  his  game,  and  lost-it. 
lie  probably  would  have  treated  his  royal  foe  in 
the  same  way  if  he  had  gained  it." 

But  we  read  the  story  with  blood  running  cold. 
It  shocks  our  sensibilities,  that  any  human  being, 
the  most  insignificant  in  the  universe,  should  be 
thus  overridden  and  crushed  by  the  spiked  wheels 
of  states  and  empires.  We  marvel  that  God 
should  suffer  such  things.  Can  there  be  a  God, 
we  ask,  who  can  permit  such  useless  torture  of  a 
lone  old  man?  A  society  of  atheists  once  pub- 
lished a  card  on  which  were  prmted  these  words : 
''  What  l)ecomes  of  God's  omnipotence,  if  he 
would  have  prevented  suffering,  and  could  not? 
What  becomes  of  his  benevolence,  if  he  coidd 
have  prevented  suffering,  and  wcw/t?  not?"  Sure 
enough,  without  a  revelation  we  cannot  explain 
one  such  scene  in  the  drama  of  one  human 
life. 

Yet  such  is  the  darksome  way  in  which  God 
moves.  Verily  thou  art  a  God  that  hidest  thyself, 
lie  seems  to  keep  himself  aloof,  in  awful  seclusion 
from  human  woes,  as  if  the.  sight  of  them  were 
either  too  much,  or  too  little,  for  such  as  he.  I 
go  forward,  but  he  is  not  there ;  and  backward, 
but  I  cannot  perceive  him.  Does  not  every-day 
human  life  often  force  the  cry  of  Job  from  white 
and  trembling  lips  ? 


INTERTWINING   OF   GOD'S   PLANS.  219 

A  young  husband  and  wife  start  on  their  bridal 
toui'.  Loving  and  loved,  their  liearts  open  to  all 
living  things,  the  future  seems  to  be  one  long 
golden  age.  In  a  few  hours,  they  are  dragged, 
with  charred  arms  infolding  each  other's  lifeless 
forms,  from  the  ruins  of  the  wrecked  train  at 
Ashtabula,  and  their  bridal  tour  is  ended. 
-  A  factory  building,  five  stories  high,  falls  to  the 
ground  just  after  seven  hundred  men  and  women 
and  children  have  begun  their  afternoon  task. 
Through  the  oily  crevices  of  the  ruins,  fire  creeps 
and  hisses  and  leaps,  and  coils  itself  around  its 
"helpless  victims,  like  a  swift,  mad  serpent.  I 
stand  by  what  were  just  now  living  and  chatting 
men  and  women,  and  children  whom  mothers 
"  kissed  good-by  "  an  hour  ago.  I  see  them  now, 
still  and  stark,  arranged  in  ghastly  order  on  the 
floor  of  the  city  hall.  I  observe  that  the  arms  of 
man}-,  burned  to  the  blackened  bone,  have  been 
thrown  up  to  fight  off  the  flames  from  their  roast- 
ins:  faces.  Oh !  can  there  be  a  God  in  the  same 
world  where  such  things  are  ?  If  there  be  one,  is 
he  not  such  as  Elijah  laughed  at  ?  Does  he  not 
tarry,  talking  w^ith  somebody?  Is  he  not  hunt- 
ing ?  Is  he  not  on  a  journey  ?  Is  te  not  asleep  ? 
Oh  I  who,  what,  where  is  he  ?  Oh  that  I  knew 
where  I  might  find  him ! 

A  man  was  once  di-awn  out  insensible  from  the 
ruins  of  a  railroad-train  after  a  collision,  he  the 
only  living  one  of  twelve.     He  said  that  when  he 


220  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

came  to  liimself,  the  first  tiling  lie  noticed  was  a 
bluebird  singing  merrily  in  a  hazel-bush  near  by. 

On  the  field  of  Shiloh,  where  four  thousand 
wounded  and  dying  men  lay  in  their  blood  all 
night,  the  blue  and  the  gray  side  by  side,  one  of 
them  h)oked  up  reproachfully  to  the  cold  stars. 
"Why,"  thought  he,  "do  they  not  veil  their 
faces  ?  They  seem  to  wink  to  each  other  at  this 
scene  of  agony,  as  if  it  were  the  denofiment  of  a 
comedy." 

Yes,  God  does  seem  to  leave  men  to  their  fate 
at  times,  as  if  death-throes  were  no  concern  of  his. 
All  happy  things  at  such  times  appear  to  mock 
human  agony  with  a  ferocity  all  the  more  unbear- 
able  because  it  is  so  still  and  so  beautiful,  yet  so 
cold-blooded.  Individuals  are  left  to  work  out 
their  own  ruin.  Tempters  do  devil's  work  on  the 
young  and  the  unwary.  Innocent  ones  suffer 
with  the  guilty.  Nations  trample  out  nations  in 
the  rage  of  their  huge  passions.  The  millions  are 
dragged  under  by  the  pride  of  one.  Helpless 
women  and  little  children  are  the  victims.  The 
great  wheels  crash  into  and  crumple  up  the  litr 
tle  wheels.  Happy  homes  give  place  to  battle- 
grounds. Wheat-fields  grow  rank,  fertilized  by 
human  blood.  Artillery  thunders  in  cemeteries, 
and  ploughs  open  graves.  "  Glorious  victories  " 
are  but  the  pretty  name  of  hell.  So  human  life 
goes  on.  This  is  history.  It  was  in  \'iew  of  such 
possibilities  in  every  human  life  that  DeQuincey 


^ 


INTERTWINING   OF   GOD's   PLANS.  221 

said,  "  Death  we  can  face ;  but,  knowing  what  life 
is,  which  of  us  is  it,  that,  without  shuddering, 
coukl,  if  consciously  summoned  to  it,  face  the 
hour  of  birth?'' 

3.  Yet  the  plans  of  God  envelop  and  use  the 
plans  of  men  with  more  than  motherly  tenderness  for 
every  man,  every  woman,  every  child.  In  infinite 
pity  he  looks  down  upon  man,  woman,  child,  one 
by  one.  The  remoteness  of  his  hiding  is  only  the 
measure  of  his  love.  All  the  mystery  springs 
from  the  fact  that  liis  melting  eye  looks  so  far 
ahead,  and  his  soft  hand  reaches  down  to  the  roots 
of  suffering,  so  far  beyond  oui-  sight,  or  even  our 
Avill  to  see. 

This  truth  in  its  fulness  we  owe  to  the  Bible. 
Througli  the  whole  range  of  the  Old  Testament 
this  idea  runs, — that  God  is  a  personal  and  faith- 
ful Friend  to  every  one  who  will  be  his  fi'iend. 
"•  Jly  God ;  "  "  my  Rock ;  "  "  my  Fortress ;  "  "  my 
Deliverer;"  ''the  God  of  Abraham;"  "the  God 
of  Isaac ;  "  "  the  God  of  Jacob  ;  "  "  Abraham,  the 
friend  of  God ;  "  "  Moses,  my  friend  ;  "  "  ye  are 
as  the  apple  of  mine  eye  ; "  "I  will  do  them  good 
with  my  whole  heart  and  with  my  whole  soul." 
Do  we  venture  to  say,  "  Our  Father "  ?  He  re- 
sponds, "  As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth, 
so  will  I  comfort  thee." 

The  New  Testament  declares  the  same  with  yet 
more  intense  significance.  A  fond  mother  dotes 
over  the  glossy  ringlets  of  her  boy :  he  finds  them 


222  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

among  lier  garnered  treasures  wlien,  in  strong 
manhood,  he  has  followed  her  to  the  burial.  But 
God,  with  the  afifairs  of  a  boundless  universe  on 
his  mind,  has  found  time  to  do  what  was  never 
done  by  young  mother  to  her  first-born  in  the 
leisure  of  tlie  nursery,  —  to  number  the  very  hairs 
on  his  head.  We  have  but  a  faint  conception  of 
that  love  which  belongs  to  creatorship  and  re- 
demi)tion.     (Jod  only  knows  the  love  of  God. 

Taking  this  key  from  God's  word,  we  can  un- 
lock the  whole  mystery  of  life,  so  far  as  sufl'ering 
is  concerned.  To  the  eye  of  a  good  man,  it  is  not 
so  much  the  greatness  as  the  minuteness  of  God's 
love  which  overwhelms  huu.  Scientists  claim  that 
the  microscope  has  revealed  more  of  the  wonders 
of  nature  than  the  telescope.  So  it  is  the  micro- 
scopic look  into  human  life  which  reveals  the 
most  marvellous  loving-kindness  of  God. 

Let  any  man  once  give  faith  to  the  biblical 
thought  of  God  as  his  personal  friend,  and  carry  it 
back  to  the  review  of  his  own  life  from  infancy  up, 
and  he  will  find  the  evidence  of  divine  love  to  him, 
as  if  to  huu  only,  coming  in  upon  his  soul  like  the 
flood  of  many  waters.  The  invisible  hand  is  seen 
in  such  things  as  these,  —  I  select  at  random  from 
one  life  onh',  —  an  old  song  which  the  mother  sang 
in  the  Sunday  twilight ;  a  tree,  a  stream,  a  lake,  a 
mountain,  which  were  more  than  friends  to  our 
boyhood ;  a  certain  chance  interview  with  a  friend, 
wliich  was  rich  in  lifelong  results ;  a  speech  heard 


INTERTTVTNING   OF  GOD's   PLANS.  223 

on  a  certain  festive  day;  the  sight  of  the  great 
man  who  first  awakened  great  aspirations  within 
us;  the  sight  of  the  good  man  who  first  made 
religion  a  reality  to  us ;  a  certain  book  come  upon 
at  hap-hazard  ;  a  certain  sermon  heard  long  years 
ago,  or  one  sentence  in  it,  or  the  text  only ;  the 
death  of  the  college  friend  wliich  first  made  heaven 
a  fact  to  us ;  the  mild  reproof  of  a  certain  saintly 
woman;  the  first  lesson  in  practical  astronomy; 
a  Christian  hymn  sung  somewliere  in  the  moun- 
tains ;  the  gift  of  a  rosebud  from  a  hand  now  still 
forever;  a  certain  conversation  with  a  stranger  in 
the  cars  ;  last  words  from  a  mother's  death-bed  ;  a 
certain  prayer  heard  when  homesick  in  a  foreign 
laud  ;  the  mysterious  delays  wliich  prevented  us 
from  embarking  on  board  the  ship  that  went  down 
at  sea ;  a  look  at  the  Bay  of  Naples ;  an  hour  in 
the  Colosseum  at  Rome  ;  the  hour  spent  in  the 
"  closes  "  of  Edinburgh  where  Chalmers  labored ; 
the  Lord's  Supper  at  Lucerne. 

Can  we  not  all  recall  similar  events  and  circum- 
stances, some  of  them  too  minute  to  mean  much 
in  the  rehearsal,  but  which  have  been  so  inwrought 
into  our  subsequent  life  that  we  cannot  but  break 
forth  sometimes  into  a  carol  of  thanksgiving  at 
the  thought  of  them  ?  I  know  a  man  whom  the 
perfume  of  mignonnette  in  the  month  of  iVugust 
moves  to  ejaculatory  prayer,  because  it  is  so  asso- 
ciated with  a  certain  day  and  hour  in  August  of  a 
certain  year  in  the  critical  period  of  his  youth, 


224  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

when,  walking  in  his  father's  garden,  he  gave  his 
heart  to  Christ. 

That  wounded  soldier  who  rebuked  the  winking 
stars  on  the  field  of  Shiloh  bethought  him  of  a 
hymn  which  he  used  to  sing  when  a  boy  in  the 
Sunday  school.  Something  moved  him  to  sing  it 
again ;  iind  he  broke  out  with,  — 

"  When  I  can  read  my  title  clear 
To  mansions  in  the  skies,"  ^c. 

When  the  third  line  was  reached,  another  voice 
joined  his,  then  anotlier  and  another ;  and  when 
he  began  the  second  stanza,  more  than  three  hun- 
di'ed  of  those  wounded  men,  some  of  them  ^\  ith 
faltering  and  dying  accents,  and  again  the  gray 
and  the  blue  together,  wafted  that  Christian  song 
over  that  field  of  blood. 

Was  there  no  prevision  of  a  divine  eye,  no  plan- 
ning of  a  divme  hand,  in  teaching  them  that  liymn 
of  holy  triumph  long  years  before  ?  Was  there  no 
prompting  of  thoughtful  and  tender  kindness  in 
their  being  moved  to  sing  it  then  when  most  they 
needed  it?  To  many  of  them,  doubtless,  it  was 
more  than  the  wings  of  angels,  bearing  them  up 
to  the  opening  heavens. 

We  cannot  convince  a  man  of  the  reality  of 
these  awakening  and  creative  influences  in  other 
lives,  who  has  not  felt  them  in  his  own.  The 
power  to  see  them  is  largely  a  matter  of  %vill.  If 
I  take  a  handful  of   steel-filings,  and  hold  over 


INTERTWINING   OF   GOD's   PLANS.  225 

them  my  ebony  ruler,  there  is  no  motion.  They 
lie  still  and  dead.  But  if  I  take  a  magnet,  that 
iron  with  a  soul  in  it,  and  draw  it  slowly  over 
them,  every  solitary  particle  springs  in  response, 
and  clings  to  the  electric  metal  as  to  a  Mend.  So 
let  a  man  whose  faith  in  God  is  tvooden  review  his 
own  life,  and  he  may  find  nothing  suggestive  to 
such  faith.  But  once  magnetize  him  with  the  will 
•to  see,  and  he  cannot  find  so  much  as  the  space 
for  a  needle's  point  on  which  the  love  of  God  has 
not  left  its  impress. 

To  eyes  once  opened  to  this  truth,  it  throws  a 
flood  of  golden  light  over  the  blackest  and  most 
tempestuous  midnight  of  a  troubled  life.  Such 
a  man  knows  that  there  is  a  God  in  heaven 
whom  the  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain,  but 
who  deigns  to  dwell  in  the  homes  of  men.  You 
can  neither  jirove  it  to  him  nor  disprove  it.  He 
knows  it.  When  scientists  come  bending  under 
the  weight  of  their  learned  volumes,  proving  be- 
yond all  question  that  God  is  not,  he  waves  them 
off,  smiling  as  at  the  bugaboo  which  scared  his 
childhood  in  the  dark. 

4.  The  interlacing  of  the  plans  of  God  with  the 
plans  of  men  goes  far  towards  explaining  the  mys- 
tery of  shocking  and  exceptional  calamity.  Start- 
ing with  the  inexplicable /aci  of  sin,  there  is  little 
myster}^  left  in  any  Idnd  or  degree  or  combinations 
of  suffering.  In  a  world  overrun  with  sin  and 
steeped  in  guilt  as  this  world  is,  suffering  is  no 


226  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAaiENT. 

mystery.  It  is  God's  great  remedial  antidote  to 
sin.  The  mystery  would  be  fearful  if  there  were 
none.  Suffering  is  a  wonderful  fertilizer  to  the 
roots  of  character.  The  great  object  of  this  life 
is  character.  This  is  the  only  tiling  we  can  carry 
with  us  into  eternity.  Benevolent  discipline,  there- 
fore, is  aimed  at  the  accumulating,  the  consolidat- 
ing, and  the  purifying,  of  character.  To  gain  the 
most  of  it,  and  the  best  of  it,  is  l^he  object  of 
probation. 

For  such  an  object,  suffering  must  often  take  on 
a  surgical  severity.  The  right  hand  must  be  cut 
off,  and  the  right  eye  plucked  out.  Who  can  say 
what  suffering  may  not  have  done  for  that  wretched 
prince  of  Judali  in  the  dungeons  of  Chaldtea? 
The  butchery  of  his  cliildren  may  have  been  the 
only  thing  that  could  drive  him  back  to  the  God 
of  his  fathers.  Blinded  eyes  and  chained  limbs 
may  have  been  necessary  to  fit  him  for  heaven. 
Those  dark  days  and  silent  nights,  —  at  a  distance 
of  twentj^-five  hundred  years  one  shivers  at  the 
thought  of  them, — yet  they  may  have  been  a 
grand  opportunity  for  the  Spu'it  of  God  to  work 
in.  God  may  have  been  waiting  for  it  for  fifty 
years.  The  doomed  sufferer,  but  the  saved  sinner, 
may  now  be  praising  God  for  them.  It  will  prob- 
ably be  one  of  the  surprises  of  heaven,  that  we 
shall  find  there  so  many  saved  by  God's  loving 
use  of  last  days,  it  may  be  of  last  hours,  of  speech- 
less suffering  here. 


INTERTWINING  OF   GOD'S   PLANS.  227 

But  what  of  the  suffering  of  innocence  and  the 
awful  inequalities  of  it  in  this  world  ?  What  of 
those  '  helpless,  butchered  little  children  of  the 
Judajan  king  ?  Well,  we  admit  that  it  is  a  tough 
question ;  jet  it  is  not  wholly  unanswerable.  The 
mystery  is  lightened  when  we  take  in  God's  con- 
ception of  the  evil  of  sm.  Nothing  can  be  too 
shocking  to  express  divhie  abhorrence  of  that. 
.'The  more  startling  and  mysterious  that  expression, 
the  more  natural  it  is.  Sin  itself  is  the  great 
anomaly  of  the  universe.  God's  treatment  of  it 
should  seem  to  be  full  of  anomalies,  strange  and 
fearful.  That  is  just  what  sin  calls  for.  Hence 
the  suffering  of  the  innocent  \vith  and  for  the 
guilty.  Yet,  to  the  innocent,  suffering  is  not 
vengeance ;  it  is  not  punishment  even :  it  is  only 
the  discipline  which  love  chooses  for  their  holy 
development.  To  them  it  is  just  what  they  are 
conscious  of  receiving.  If  conscious  of  no  sin, 
they  are  conscious  of  no  punishment. 

Have  you  never  seen  the  look  of  age  on  the 
countenance  of  an  infant  in  its  coffin  ?  Suffering 
may  have  done  rapidly  the  work  of  years  of  or- 
dinary life  there  in  creating  character.  That 
infant's  chief  praise  in  heaven  may  be  for  the  fact 
that  its  brief  life  here  was  one  of  anguish.  That 
may  have  been  the  chief  instrument  by  which  God 
has  lifted  it  above  the  rank  of  a  humming-bird. 

Even  when  death  in  shocking  and  violent  fury 
seems  to  overtake  men  unprepared,  who  shall  say 


228  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

that  infinite  love,  and  love  to  them^  may  not  have 
so  ordained  it  ?  Men  who  have  entered  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  by  drowning,  and  have  come  back 
to  life,  tell  us  of  a  strange  quickening  of  the  soul's 
capacities  in  those  moments  of  suspended  vitality. 
Souls  live  fast  in  last  moments.  Who  can  say, 
then,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  does  not  avail  himself 
of  that  law  of  mind,  and  work  fast  in  such 
moments?  At  the  last  trump,  we  shall  be 
changed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  Why  not  as 
well  in  the  death-gasp?  Oh!  you  and  I  must 
become  a  great  deal  wiser  than  we  are  now,  in 
the  hidden  things  of  wisdom,  before  we  can  ven- 
ture to  raise  a  <|uestion  even  of  the  tenderness  of 
God,  in  the  most  appalling  tragedy  which  cold  stars 
ever  winked  at,  or  merry  bluebirds  ever  sang  to 
in  tlie  hazel-bush. 

5.  The  interworkiug  of  the  plans  of  God  with 
the  plans  of  men  Huugcsts  the  only  true  inethod  of 
happy  as  u'ell  as  holy  living.  It  is  to  make  our 
plans  one  with  God's  plans.  Thus  blessedness  is 
sure  for  both  worlds.  Study  God's  plans ;  study 
his  providences;  study  his  word;  hearken  for  the 
whispers  of  his  Spirit.  Make  much  of  still  hours. 
Find  out  thus  your  place  in  God's  purj^oses  of 
procedure.  Then  drop  into  that  place  trustfully 
and  contentedly.  Move  with  his  moves,  start  at 
his  bidding,  go  here,  go  there,  stay,  as  he  directs. 
Lie  still  and  suffer,  if  that  be  the  order  from 
above.     Have  no  will  but  his.     Pray  no  unquali- 


INTERTWrNING   OF   GOD's   PLANS.  229 

fied  prayers,  except  where  he  lias  revealed  his  will. 
Never  plan  without  taking  God  into  confidence, 
and  asking  him  what  he  thinks  of  it.  Never  con- 
tend with  God  in  secret  feeling.  Give  way  to  no 
silent  longings  of  discontent.  Indulge  no  reveries 
over  impossible  blessings.  When  prayer  has  lifted 
you  into  harmony  with  him,  do  not  fritter  it  away 
by  repining  after-thoughts.  Never  look  backward : 
Teinember  Lot's  wife.  Our  chief  miseries  come 
from  spiritual  retrogrades.  In  short,  be  at  one 
with  God :  so  shall  j^our  peace  flow  like  a  river, 
and  your  joy  shall  be  like  the  swellings  of  Jordan. 


TIIK  KINGDOMS  THAT  DIE.  AND  THE  KING- 
DOM THAT  LIVES. 

And  in  tlifdays  of  these  kings  shall  the  God  of  lieavcn  set  up 
a  kingdom  whii  h  shall  never  be  destroyed  ;  a^d  the  kingdom 
sliall  not  be  left  to  other  peoi>le,  but  it  shall  break  in  pieees  and 
consume  all  these  kingdoms,  and  it  shall  stand  forever.  Foras- 
much as  thou  sawest  that  the  stone  was  cut  out  of  the  mountain 
without  hands,  and  that  it  brake  in  jueces  the  iron,  the  brass,  the 
clay,  the  silver,  and  the  gold;  the  great  God  hath  made  known  to 
the  king  what  shall  come  to  jjass  licreafter:  and  the  dream  is 
certain,  and  tlie  interpretation  thereof  sure.  —  Dxn.  ii.  44,  45. 

THIS  oiiigmatical  passa;^c  in  the  life  of  the 
Uabvlonian  moiiarcli  is  aptly  summed  up  in 
the  foregoing  title.  I  must  leave  to  the  commen- 
taries the  disputed  interpretation  of  this  symbolic 
language,  and  confine  my  thought  to  the  obvious 
principle  involved  in  it,  which  extends  over  a 
broader  area.  It  expresses  a  fragment  of  tliat 
universal  law  bv  which  every  thing  human  is 
doomed  to  decay,  but  to  wliich  there  is  one,  and 
but  one,  mysterious  exception. 

1.  The  law  of  decay  in  human  affairs:  let  us  en- 
deavor to  obtain  some  fresh  conception  of  it,  as  a 
law  under  which  every  human  life  passes. 

(1)  It  is  impressively  illustrated  in  the  fact  that 
individuals  pass  so  soon  out  of  the  memory  of  the 

2o0 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  231 

world.  Individuals  soon  die,  and  the  dead  are 
soon  forgotten.  When  a  man  dies,  another  man 
arises  wlio  will  fill  his  place,  and,  as  a  rule,  fill  it 
as  well  as  he  has  done.  His  business,  his  houses, 
his  lands,  his  honors,  his  titles,  will  pass  into  oth^r 
hands,  and  by  the  world  at  large  he  will  not  be 
missed.  He  will  die  out  of  the  world's  thought  as 
thorouglily  as  his  mouldering  body  passes  out  from 
•'the  home  which  he  once  cheered,  and  from  the  seat 
at  the  table  of  which  he  was  once  the  honored 
head. 

A  man's  character  may  live.  The  influence  he 
.  exerted  may  pass  into  other  lives,  but  not  in  any 
such  wa}^  as  to  identify  his  name,  and  keep  that 
alive.  That  dies  as  surely  as  he  dies,  and  not  long 
after.  Scientists  tell  us  that  it  is  a  law  of  dynamics 
that  a  pin  dropped  to  the  surface  of  the  earth 
sends  a  concussion  through  the  universe.  But 
who  hears  the  falling  pin?  Who  feels  the  force  of 
the  blow  ?  What  sleeper  is  awakened  by  it  ?  Who 
identifies  and  remembers  it  ?  Similar  is  the  law  of 
individual  influence.  It  lives,  indeed,  through  all 
time,  and  penetrates  eternity ;  but  the  man  soon 
ceases  to  be  known  as  its  author.  His  decaying 
brain  is  not  more  securely  buried  in  the  grave 
from  the  sight  of  men,  than  his  name  is,  sooner  or 
later,  from  their  memory.  Such  is  the  common 
course  of  human  life.  So  it  has  been ;  so  it  is ;  so 
it  must  be  ;  so  it  will  be  forever. 

(2)  This  law  of  decay  is  more  impressively  illus- 


232  STUDIES    OF   TflE   OLD   TESTA:^rENT. 

trated  in  the  fact  that  nafiiois  dir.  Why  sliould 
not  a  proud  and  gallant  nation,  which  has  made  a 
thousand  years  of  history,  make  ten  thousand 
more,  — yes,  live  on  forever  ?  The  monarch  of  the 
;^^t  was  not  without  some  reason  for  his  boast, 
"Is  not  this  great  Babylon,  which  I  have  built?" 
Who  shall  dare  to  predict  its  downfall  ?  It  surely, 
with  its  walls  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high, 
and  so  l)road  that  four  chariots  could  drive  abreast 
on  their  summit,  —  it  surely  had  the  look  of  eter- 
nity. "  The  Eternal  City,"  the  Romans  proudly 
called  their  peerless  capital,  —  and  why  not? 

Yet  what  is  the  history  of  great  empires?  What 
but  the  record  of  the  death-scenes  of  nations  ? 
The  glory  of  one  is  the  doom  of  another;  the  rise 
of  one,  the  fall  of  its  predecessor.  So  uniform  has 
the  process  been,  that  philosojihic  historians  have 
believed  that  the  liistory  of  nations  is  foredoomed 
to  run  in  a  circle,  not  in  a  line.  Rise,  growth, 
glory,  decay,  faU,  death,  seem  to  tell  the  whole 
story.     History  seems  like  one  vast  obituary. 

So  complete  is  the  oblivion  which  creeps  over 
great  nations,  that  in  some  cases  the  fact  of  their 
having  lived  is  known  only  by  melancholy  infer- 
ence from  the  fact  that  they  have  died.  Antiqua- 
rians find  in  the  East  enormous  burial-places,  with 
cypresses  overgrowing  thousands  of  graves,  w'hen 
every  other  trace  of  the  cities  which  once  supplied 
them  with  their  silent  population  has  disappeared. 
The  aboriginal  mounds  found  in  some  parts  of  our 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DTE.  233 

own  continent  toll  a  similar  story.  Great  nations 
doubtless  once  lived  here,  of  which  those  burial- 
mounds  are  the  only  monument  now  extant.  Not 
a  page  of  written  history,  not  a  hieroglyph,  remains 
to  tell  us  who  and  what  they  were :  their  very 
names  are  blotted  from  the  knowledge  of  mankind 
forever. 

(3)  This  law  of  decay  is  illustrated  instruct- 
'ively  in  the  fact  that  it  dhappoints  the  most  plausi- 
ble plans  and  expectations  of  men.  Endless  are  the 
expedients  by  which  men  struggle  against  death  in 
the  memory  of  their  successors.  Some  have  built 
,  pyramids ;  others  have  fought  battles ;  others  have 
written  books  or  made  discoveries;  others  have 
founded  cities,  libraries,  schools,  churches  ;  others 
have  established  families  among  a  hereditary  nobil- 
ity. How  much  of  wasted  mind  has  been  ex- 
pended on  the  science  of  heraldry !  Yet  not  one 
of  these  lifelong  struggles  has  succeeded  m  giving 
to  any  man  the  object  of  his  ambition.  The  world 
forgot,  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago,  who  built 
some  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt.  Long  before 
that,  men  had  ceased  to  care  who  founded  Thebes 
or  Palmyra.  The  impressiveness  of  such  oblivion 
sometimes  borders  on  the  ludicrous.  A  few  years 
ago  I  wandered  over  the  ruins  of  old  Rome,  and 
what  think  you  I  saw  among  the  ruins  of  the  fall- 
en palace  of  the  Caesars  ?  A  garden  of  cabbages ! 
The  vilest  of  vegetables  had  more  power  to  per- 
petuate its  kind  than  he  whom  men  once  wor- 


234  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJSfENT. 

sliipped  as  a  god,  and  of  whom  they  said  that  a 
new  star  appeared  in  the  heavens  when  he  died. 
The  only  living  successor  of  Nero  and  Caligula 
was  a  plain  Mr.  Smith,  who  liad  erected  on  those 
ruins  a  red-brick  house,  not  more  imposing  than 
the  one  in  which  his  namesake  lives  in  Tenth 
Street,  P]iiladel})hia,  or  in  Houston  Street,  New 
York. 

Napoleon  lamented  that  his  conqirests  did  not 
last  as  long  as  the  time  he  occupied  in  making 
them.  His  own  prediction  was,  that  the  time 
would  come  when  all  that  the  world  would  care  to 
know  of  him  would  be  comprised  in  half  a  page 
of  history  ;  and  he  was  right.  Sir  Walter  Scott 
fell  into  idiocy  in  his  almost  superhuman  effort  to 
place  himself  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  noble  fam- 
ilies of  Great  Britain.  But  no  child  of  his  lives 
to  inherit  his  honors  or  perpetuate  his  fame.  That 
means  of  keeping  alive  the  name  of  Walter  Scott 
has  failed  forever. 

The  point  I  would  emphasize  by  these  illustra- 
tions is  the  fact  that  the  law  of  decay  which  is 
written  on  all  things  human  is  so  imperious  in  its 
swa}'  that  the  most  ingenious  and  stupendous  ex- 
ertions of  men  to  achieve  what  they  call  immor- 
tality are  overreached  and  defeated  by  it,  and 
that  therefore  disappointment  is  written  on  thou- 
sands of  wasted  lives.  The  most  long-lived  of 
those  whom  the  world  calls  immortal  on  the  rolls 
of  fame  must  at  last  accept  the  epitaph  wliich  the 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  235 

poet  Keats  suggested  for  his  own  :  "  Here  lies  one 
whose  name  was  writ  in  water." 

2.  But  to  this  law  of  decay  in  human  affairs 
there  is  one  grand  and  marvellous  exception.  God 
has  a  kingdom  in  tliis  world,  which  lives. 

(1)  It  deserves  mention  in  illustration  of  this 
exception,  that  the  work  of  God  in  redemption  is 
ihe  only  thing  in  human  hi)<tory  that  dates  hack  to 
the  beginning  of  time.  God's  work  in  this  world  is 
the  only  thing  now  living  that  goes  back  into 
antediluvian  liistory.  It  is  the  only  thing  which 
links  the  whole  of  human  history  together.  Other 
things  fall,  die,  rot,  by  the  side  of  this :  this  lives 
on  to  the  world's  end. 

The  vanity  of  individuals,  the  ambition  of  fami- 
ilies,  the  pride  of  cities,  the  glory  of  nations,  tlie 
conflicts  of  races,  —  all  have  been  short-lived.  But 
it  has  not  been  so  with  this  work  of  God.  For- 
tunes are  dissipated  in  a  tithe  of  the  time  which  it 
requires  to  amass  them.  Commercial  panics  pros- 
trate merchant  princes  in  an  hour.  Treasures  are 
sunk  in  the  sea  or  in  storms  of  fire.  The  very 
liighways  of  commerce  are  changed  by  events  which 
no  human  foresight  can  provide  for.  Cities  like 
Venice  and  the  Hanse  towns,  once  the  centres  of 
great  trades,  are  left  like  stranded  ships,  and  the 
commerce  of  the  world  flows  elsewhere.  King- 
doms, too,  perish  from  the  memory  of  men.  Races 
become  extinct.  But  it  is  not  so  with  this  work 
of  God. 


23G  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

The  very  sciences  of  the  world  fluctuate.  The 
knowledge  of  one  age  becomes  folly  to  the  next. 
The  universities  of  to-day  laugh  at  those  of  yes- 
terday. Culture  runs  the  gauntlet  of  system  after 
system  of  philosophy,  of  political  economy,  of  art, 
which  seem  to  have  been  created  only  for  the  sake 
of  dying.  Pursuits  once  diguilied  as  sciences,  such 
as  astrology,  alchemy,  magic,  are  exploded.  But 
it  is  not  so  with  this  work  of  God.       , 

The  world's  religions^  too,  have  succumbed  to 
the  same  law  of  doom.  ^V  religious  system  once 
rooted  in  the  civilization  of  a  people  is  the  last 
thing  to  die.  But  many  such  have  expired.  Oth- 
ers are  in  the  process  of  dissolution.  Even  the 
languages  in  which  men  transmit  their  treasures 
of  learning,  civilization,  and  religion,  die.  What 
an  appalling  thing  to  the  imagination  is  a  dead 
language  I  Every  thing  that  man  originates  lives 
but  a  brief  time  in  a  woi-Id's  life.  But  it  is  not 
so  with  this  work  of  God. 

Amidst  disorganizing  forces  that  shake  to  pieces 
every  thing  else,  this  work  lives,  with  the  fixedness 
of  the  North  Star.  Other  things  bend  to  this: 
this  never  yields  to  them.  All  force  in  this  world, 
sooner  or  later,  yields  to  this  unarmed  and  silent 
power.  In  every  thing  else  the  iron  and  the  brass 
and  the  clay  become  like  the  chaff  of  the  summer 
tlu-eshing-floor ;  while  the  stone  cut  out  without 
hands  is  growing  to  a  great  mountain,  and  filling 
the  whole  earth. 


THE  KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  237 

(2)  The  contrast  between  tlie  kingdoms  of  men 
and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  further  seen  in  the 
mysterious  vitality  of  right  in  this  worlds  in  its  con- 
fiicts  icith  wrong.  Evil,  organized  never  so  deftly, 
becomes  effete.  Good  seems  robust  and  always 
growing.  The  right,  in  the  outset  of  a  great 
conflict  with  wrong,  is  always  underneath ;  yet  it 
always  comes  uppermost.     It  is  never  safe  to  an 

•'evil  thing  to  agitate  it.  Inquiry  is  death  to  it. 
In  every  conflict  the  right  gains  sometliing.  It 
never  loses  a  battle.  Its  drawn  battles  are  secret 
victories.     When  Edmund  Burke  said  to  the  first 

,  military  and  naval  power  of  the  world,  "  You  can- 
not conquer  America,"  he  spoke  a  principle  which 
runs  through  all  historic  struggle  of  wrong  ^vith 
right. 

It  is  astonishing  what  heroic  deeds  men  who  are 
not  above  their  fellows  in  strength  of  religious 
principle  will  dare  to  undertake,  if  sustained  by  a 
consciousness  of  being  in  the  right.  Why  are  a 
dozen  policemen,  on  the  side  of  law,  a  match  for 
a  hundred  desperadoes  in  a  riot  ?  When  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  was  debating  the  question  of 
independence  of  the  mother-country,  more  than 
half  the  world  believed  it  would  never  dare  to 
do  the  deed.  English  statesmen  smiled  incredu- 
lously when  it  was  tlu"eatened.  When  the  "  Decla- 
ration "  was  under  discussion,  and  it  was  rumored 
that  it  would  be  signed  that  day,  an  old  man  was 
sent   into   the   belfiy   of    Independence   Hall,   in 


238  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAJVIENT. 

Philadelphia,  where  the  Congress  was  in  session, 
and  directed  to  strike  one  hundred  strokes  on 
"  Liberty  Bell  "  when  the  act  was  done.  The  old 
man  sauntered  up  the  spiral  stairs  muttering, 
"They  will  never  do  it;  they  will  never  do  it." 
He  spoke  the  feeling  of  more  than  half  his  con- 
temporaries the  world  over.  The  hours  went 
slowly  by :  the  old  man  fell  asleep  at  his  post,  but 
was  at  length  roused  by  a  shout  from  "State 
House  yard:"  "Ring,  ring!  they've  done  it!" 
And  the  hundred  tongues  of  "  Liberty  Bell "  told 
the  world  that  fifty-five  ^  men  had  defied  the  first 
naval  power  of  Europe. 

They  had  done  it  at  the  risk  of  tlieir  lives. 
Every  man  who  signed  that  scroll  committed  high 
treason.  When  the  last  name  was  written,  a  si- 
lence fell  upon  the  assembly,  in  which  every  man 
thought  of  the  scaffold.  So  oppressive  was  the 
stillness,  that  Franklin  felt  the  need  of  lifting  the 
mood  of  his  colleagues  to  one  more  cheerful ;  and 
he  uttered  the  hon  mot  which  has  since  become 
famous :  "  Now  we  must  all  hang  together,  or  we 
shall  all  hayig  separately." 

Nothing  could  have  sustained  such  men  in  such 
a  deed  but  the  simple  consciousness  that  they 
were  in  the  right.  Among  them  were  praying 
men,  whose  thought  was  of  the  God  of  battles. 

1  Common  history  says  "fifty-six."  But  one  of  the  number 
was  absent  at  the  time,  and  was  permitted  to  add  his  name  some 
time  after. 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  239 

The  clause  near  the  end  of  the  Declaration,  "  With 
a  firm  reliance  on  Divine  Providence,"  was  not  in 
the  original  draft  by  Jefferson.  It  was  inserted 
as  an  amendment  by  unanimous  vote.  That  ap- 
peal to  God,  in  behalf  of  right,  was  more  to  them 
than  the  fleets  of  England,  which  whitened  all  the 
harbors  of  the  world.  Right  in  the  affairs  of  men 
is  .the  synonyme  of  God.  It  lives  because  he  lives. 
Jt  ig  eternal  because  he  is  eternal. 

3.  The  contrast  between  God's  kingdom  and 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world  is  further  seen  in  an 
anomalous  suspension  of  the  law  of  decay  in  some 
eases  of  historic  immortality.  The  only  men  who 
"are  destined  to  live  while  the  world  lives  are  those 
who  are  in  some  way  especially  identified  with  the 
kingdom  of  Clu"ist.  The  only  nations  which  will 
escape  the  decline  and  fall  which  have  thus  far 
made  up  the  "dismal  round  of  history  are  those 
which  shall  be  given  to  Christ,  and  shall  realize 
the  Christian  ideal  of  national  life  in  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  future.  The  perpetuity  of  the  Hebrew 
nation  is  the  great  miracle  of  history,  unparalleled 
by  the  fate  of  any  other  people  on  the  globe  under 
similar  conditions.  They  live  because  they  were 
once,  and  are  to  be  again,  the  chosen  people  of 
God  in  executing  the  purposes  of  redemption. 

Such  exceptions  are  perceptible  even  in  the  ex- 
perience of  individuals.  Compare  a  good  man  and 
a  bad  man  in  any  community,  in  respect  to  the 
memory  of  them  which  lives  after  them.     The  good 


240  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAIMENT. 

man  always  lives  longer,  in  the  memory  of  survi- 
vors, than  the  bad  man  of  the  same  amount  of 
character,  and  with  equal  conditions  of  power. 
Never  did  inspiration  utter  a  truer  apothegm  tlian 
in  recording  that  "the  memory  of  the  wicked  sliall 
rotr 

4.  Here  belongs  the  fact  that  the  only  names 
from  the  remote  past  which  in  the  nature  of  things 
can  go  down  to  the  world's  latest  ages,  are  those 
which  are  to  be  immortalized  hy  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures. 

This  book  is  the  only  literature  of  the  first  times 
which  can  live  in  the  vivid  and  fresh  interest  of 
men  to  the  last  times. 

It  is  a  pleasant  thought,  that  the  very  names 
which  we  revere  in  the  biblical  biographies  will 
seem  to  the  last  generations  of  the  race  to  be  the 
only  immortal  names  in  history.  Tlie  very  stories 
which  we  teach  to  our  children  from  these  inspired 
pages  will  fascinate  the  children  and  the  children's 
children  of  the  world's  closing  ages.  Abel,  Abra- 
ham, Josei:)h,  David,  Isaiah,  Daniel,  John  the  Bap- 
tist, St.  Paul,  the  Virgin  ^lary,  will  live  in  the 
reverence  of  the  remotest  times,  when  not  a  guess 
at  their  existence  could  survive  the  ravages  of 
time  but  for  the  place  they  hold  in  the  execution 
of  God's  work  and  in  the  record  of  it  in  God's 
vord. 

The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  will   immortalize    certain   names,  wliich 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  241 

now  are  not  known  to  half  the  world.  That  poor 
woman  who  broke  the  box  of  alabaster  on  the  per- 
son of  her  Lord  is  to  have  a  memorial  of  that  act 
preserved  for  her  among  all  nations  and  through 
all  time.  She  will  be  the  subject  of  study  to 
Christian  scholars  when  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt 
shall  have  crumbled.  What  will  the  world  care 
then  for  Cheops  in  comparison  with  this  nameless 
iwoman  ?  Her  deed  of  love  to  Christ  will  give  her 
a  name  above  all  the  honors  of  heraldry.  It  is  an 
affecting  comment  on  the  destiny  of  all  things  hu- 
man, that  the  only  thing  which  is  to  hand  down 
the  name  of  the  first  man  of  our  race  to  the  last 
man  is  that  plan  of  God  in  the  structure  of  the 
Bible  which  has  wrought  the  name  of  Adam  into 
the  story  of  redemption. 

A  single  reflection  is  suggested  by  this  review. 
It  is  the  glory  of  the  Christian  Church.  Who  can 
help  exulting  in  it  ?  In  this  Church  of  the  living 
God  is  concentrated  all  that  is  eternal  in  tliis 
world's  history.  It  is  identified  with  God,  and 
God  is  identified  with  it.  Its  work  is  God's  work. 
Already  its  history  laps  over  into  another  world. 
It  has  sent  forward  its  advance-guard  in  innumer- 
able hosts  who  are  waiting  for  the  rear-guard. 
But  a  little  stream  divides  them.  That  stream  it- 
self is  populous  with  the  multitudes  who  are  cross- 


ing over. 


"  Just  before,  the  sliining  shore 
We  may  almost  discover." 


242  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

It  is  a  privilege  —  is  it  not  ?  —  to  be  a  member 
of  the  Church  of  Christ ;  to  constitute  one  of 
this  mighty  and  immortal  host ;  to  bear  the  name 
which  it  bears ;  to  unite  in  its  songs,  and  be  re- 
membered in  its  prayers  ;  to  be  identified  with  its 
work,  and  to  share  its  rewards  ;  to  be  counted 
worthy  of  its  sufferings,  and  to  earn  the  fruit  of 
its  heroism :  what  has  life  to  offer  to  a  good  man 
of  lofty  aspirations  which  can  bear  comparison 
with  this?  I  never  think  of  a  child  of  God  out- 
side of  the  Church  of  Christ,  but  with  feelings  of 
unutteriiljle  compassion.  He  is  losing  so  much 
which  might  be  his;  he  is  failing  to  achieve  so 
much  which  might  swell  his  reward  at  the  Mas- 
ter's coming ! 

He  reminds  me  of  the  story  of  "  The  Man  with- 
out a  Country,"  doomed,  in  punishment  of  his  mo- 
mentary treason,  never  to  hear  from  human  lips 
the  name  of  the  land  that  gave  him  birth.  He 
crossed  oceans  in  his  country's  service,  but  could 
never  hear  her  glory  told.  Her  insignia  were  torn 
from  the  badge  of  his  imiform.  When  his  com- 
panions exulted  over  the  news  of  her  victories, 
dead  silence  stopped  all  voices  if  he  entered  their 
circle.  The  newspaper  from  home  was  not  per- 
mitted to  pass  into  his  hands  till  it  had  been  re- 
viewed by  a  censor,  and  the  name  of  his  country 
expurgated  from  its  columns.  Though  an  honest 
sailor  and  a  gallant  officer,  liis  name  appeared  no- 
where on  the  roll  of  his  countr^^'s  fame.     He  lived 


THE   KINGDOMS   THAT   DIE.  243 

and  died  a  nameless  man,  without  a  country  and 
without  a  home. 

Such  a  one  does  a  Christian  seem,  who  is  trying 
to  serve  God  and  make  his  way  to  heaven  outside 
of -and  out  of  sympatliy  with  the  Church  of  Christ. 
What  can  be  done  with  such  a  man  in  heaven  ? 
What  regrets  must  mingle  with  his  joys  on  enter- 
ing there  !  "  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me." 
That  one  command,  given  in  the  parting  hour  by 
the  loving  Savioui"  to  loved  disciples,  he  has  never 
in  his  whole  life  obeyed. 

Oh,  thanks  to  God  for  his  visible  Church !  for 
her  h3'mns  and  her  prayers,  for  her  ordinances  and 
the  promises  she  inherits,  for  the  fellowship  of  the 
saints  on  earth  with  saints  in  heaven,  for  the 
history  of  her  sufferings,  and  the  future  of  her 
triumphs !  Thank  God  for  her  immortality ! 
While  every  thing  else  in  this  world  must  die  and 
rot,  there  is  one  thing  that  lives,  one  thing  over 
which  death  has  no  power,  one  thing  that  smiles 
at  the  grave  as  it  passes  on  to  a  life  that  has  no 
end! 


FRUITLESS   COX\aCTIOXS   OF  SIN. 

Belsliazzar  tlio  kinp  niadd  a  pn"cat  feast  to  a  thousand  of  his 
lords,  and  tlrank  wine  before  till' tliousanil.  .  .  .  In  the  same  hour 
came  fortli  linjjers  of  a  man's  liand,  and  wrote  •ver  against  the 
cantllestick  upon  the  phister  of  the  wall  of  the  king's  palace;  and 
the  king  saw  the  |>art  of  the  hand  that  wrote.  Then  the  king's 
eoiinttiiance  was  ehanged.and  Ids  thoughts  troubled  him,  so  that 
the  joints  of  his  loins  were  loosed,  and  his  knees  smote  one 
against  another.  .  .  .  And  this  is  the  writing  that  was  written: 
Mknk,  Mknk.  Tkkki..  l^fiiAitsiN.  This  is  the  int<'rpretation  of 
the  thing:  Mknk;  Clod  hath  numbered  thy  kingdom,  and  finished 
it.  Tkkki.:  Thou  art  weighed  in  the  balaiieca,  and  art  found 
wanting.  PKitK.s;  Thy  kiiigtlom  is  divided,  and  given  to  the 
Medes  and  Persians.  ...  In  that  night  was  Belshazzar  the  king 
of  the  Chaldiuans  slain.  —Dan.  v.  1,  5,  (5,  25-J8,  30. 

WASIIIXriTON  ALLSTON  spent  more 
than  twelve  years  attempting  to  paint  the 
scene  of  Belshazzar's  feast,  and  then  left  his  work 
nnfinishcd.  It  is  said  that  the  chief  difficulty, 
which  the  artist's  genius  could  not  overcome,  was 
that  of  depicting  the  despair  of  the  doomed  king. 
Well  it  might  be  so ;  for  it  was  the  despair  of  a 
lost  soul  brought  suddenly  face  to  face  with  the 
retributive  judgment  of  God,  wTitten  by  a  mys- 
-terious  hand  from  another  world.  What  art  can 
portray  it  in  the  look  of  a  human  face  ? 

This  Chalda^an  monarch  is  one  of  the  few  indi- 

244 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OP   SIN.  245 

vidual  cases  mentioned  in  tlie  Si.Tiptiires,  of  men 
whose  damnation  in  eternity  is  made  morally  cer- 
tam.  Rarely,  even  in  the  case  of  a  very  wicked 
man,  does  the  inspired  writer  lift  the  veil  from 
individual  destiny,  and  assure  us  that  it  is  fatal. 
But  in  this  instance  there  can  scarcely  be  room 
for  doubt.  Tlie  implications  of  doom  are  over- 
whelming. Belshazzar  had  been  long  familiar 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  true  God.  lie  had  had 
miraculous  evidences  of  it  in  the  experience  of 
his  father.  "  Thou  knewest  all  this,"  is  the  faith- 
ful reminder  which  the  prophet  gives  him.  Yet 
he  had  persisted  in  a  life  and  reign  of  extreme 
and  unblushing  guilt.  "•  O  Belshazzar,  thou  hast 
not  lunubled  thine  heart ;  but  hast  lifted  up  thy- 
self against  the  Lord  of  heaven."  Then  appeared 
the  fearful  writing  on  the  wall,  the  purport  of 
which  is  too  plain  to  admit  of  doubt.  That  night 
the  king  was  summoned  to  the  bar  of  God. 

This  may  be  fairly  assumed,  therefore,  as  a  case 
of  clear  and  prolonged  conviction  of  sin  u'hich  did 
not  result  in  the  souVs  salvation.  Who  of  us  has 
the  heart  to  follow  the  doomed  monarch  beyond 
the  scenes  of  that  awful  night  ?  Let  us  draw  the 
veil  over  that  unwritten  and  unutterable  future, 
and  turn  to  a  class  of  men  whose  experience  on 
the  subject  of  religion  is  not  dissimilar,  so  far  as 
this,  —  that  they  have  long  known  the  truth,  have 
long  felt  themselves  to  be  sinners  before  God,  yet 
they  stop  just  there,  with  the  acknowledged  sense 


246  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

of  sin  often  lying  as  a  wearisome  weight  on  their 
souls,  and  jiever  relieved  by  repentance  and  tlie 
consciousness  of  peace  \vith  God.  If  they  were 
to  be  suddenly  called  into  God's  presence  with 
hearts  unchanged,  as  the  Chahhean  king  was,  the 
verdict  of  the  mysterious  hand  would  be  the 
same:  "Thou  art  weighed  in  the  balances,  and 
art  found  wanting." 

One  young  man  I  once  knew,  in  ,whose  mind 
these  very  words  rested  for  months,  as  the  sum- 
ming up  of  his  t>wn  character  and  destiny. 
*'Wei<dR'd,  and  found  wanting,"  —  the  words  were 
like  a  live  coal  upon  his  eyeballs.  Wlierever  he 
looked  he  saw  them.  They  glared  upon  him  from 
the  walls  of  liis  chamber.  All  faith,  all  hope,  was 
buried  in  tliem.  Outwardly  he  lived  like  other 
men.  Few  knew  the  dull  nightmare  of  conscious 
and  despairing  guilt  in  which  he  lived.  Yet  rare- 
ly was  he  conscious  of  an  hour  when  he  did  not 
feel  it,  resting  like  a  pall  over  the  joys  of  this 
world,  and  foreshadowing  in  silent  prophecy  his 
doom  in  another.  He  represented  a  class  of  men 
who  are  not  few,  who  suffer  for  years  under  hope- 
less and  fruitless  convictions  of  sin. 

There  are  certain  truths  which  one  who  is  living 
ill  the  state  of  mind  here  described  needs  espe- 
cially to  consider. 

1.  One  is  that  the  suffering  u'hich  accompanies 
hopeless  conviction  of  sin  is  no  more  than  a  sinner 
deserves.     Hopeless    consciousness    of    sin    is    re- 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  247 

morse ;  and  remorse  is  the  natural  vengeance  of 
sin  upon  a  sinner.  It  is  legitimate :  it  is  just. 
We  are  never  wronged  in  the  vengeance  of  re- 
morse. God  has  not  wronged  us  in  making  us 
susceptible  of  such  suffering; 'conscience  does  not 
wrong  us  in  inflicting  it ;  the  holy  universe  does 
not  wrong  us  in  approving  it. 

We  have  no  reason  to  compassionate  ourselves 
as  if  we  were  only  unfortunates  in  the  gloom  of 
hopeless  guilt.  That  is  an  enervating  state  of 
mind  in  whicli  a  convicted  sinner  pities  himself 
because  he  feels  that  he  is  a  sufferer.  Conviction 
must  probe  our  souls  deeper  than  that.  We  must 
condemn  ourselves,  and  justify  God,  even  if  he 
should  leave  us  in  that  furnace  of  burning  re- 
morse through  eternity.  Never  a  man  of  us  will 
truly  accept  Christ  as  a  Sa\dour,  who  does  not  so 
feel  his  own  guilt  as  to  drop  the  sense  of  injury, 
and  justify  God  in  his  condemnation.  "  Eternal 
sin  deserves  eternal  woe,"  —  until  we  feel  this  in 
our  inmost  being,  we  have  no  adequate  sense  of 
what  sin  is,  —  no  adequate  sense,  therefore,  of  our 
need  of  Christ ;  and  we  accept  Clirist  never  but 
as  a  necessity. 

One  man  lived  in  such  an  overwhelming  con- 
sciousness of  ill<lesert,  that,  when  death  ap- 
proached, he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  Let  me  beg  of 
you,  as  you  value  your  old  friend,  not  to  suffer 
any  pomp  to  be  used  at  my  funeral,  nor  any  mon- 
innental   inscription   to   mark   where   I   am   laid. 


248  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Lay  me  quietly  in  the  eiirth :  place  a  sim-clial  over 
my  grave,  and  let  me  be  forgotten."  Yet  that 
man  was  John  Howard.  The  best  ot"  men  feel 
most  profoundly  the  conviction  of  ill-desert  as  a 
part  of  tlie  conviction  of  sin.  Until  a  sinner  feels 
this,  he  cannot  feel  that  Christ  is  a  necessity  to 
him ;  and  tliere  is  no  peace  for  him. 

2.  Yet  one  who  suffers  under  unavailing  convic- 
tions should  see  that  it  is  no  proper  efff^ct  of  reliyion 
to  produce  such  convictions.  On  no  subject  do  avc 
confound  causes  and  effects  more  egregiously  than 
on  this.  We  charge  upon  religi(»n  the  misery 
which  arises  from  the  want  of  it.  The  legitimate 
tendency  of  piety  in  the  soul  is  all  benignant. 
The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  —  what  is  it?  Love,  joy, 
peace.  Glad  tidings  of  great  joy,  this  is  the  gos- 
pel.    It  is  a  volume  of  benedictions. 

Elementary  truths  are  these ;  yet  the  sense  of 
guilt  often  crowds  them  out  of  sight.  A  sinner 
feels  the  throes  of  remorse,  and  says  within  him- 
self, "■  This  is  the  fruit  of  religion."  His  former 
gayety  he  contrasts  with  his  present  misery ;  and 
he  reflects,  "  This  is  what  religion  does  for  a  man." 
The  world  looks  upon  the  change  in  him,  and 
says,  "  See  the  working  of  your  religion  :  it  is  a 
sour-faced  business !  "  Not  so,  not  so.  There  is 
no  religion  in  suffering  as  such.  There  is  no  reli- 
gion in  fear,  in  conviction  of  guilt,  in  self-reproach, 
in  forebodings  of  hell.  A  prolonged  endurance 
of  these  is  no  necessary  preliminary  to  the  peace 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  249 

of  a  forgiven  soul.  Some  converted  men  have 
never  experienced  them  in  protracted  or  despair- 
ing agony. 

Says  Dr.  Chalmers,  "I  cannot  say  of  myself 
that  I  ever  felt  a  state  of  mind  corresponding  to 
John  Bunyan's  'Slough  of  Despond.'  What  am 
I  to  infer  from  this?  That  I  have  not  yet  sur- 
mbunted  the  impassable  barrier  that  stands  be- 
tween me  and  the  gate  of  life?  So  one  would 
suppose  from  John  Bunyan.  So  I  would  sup- 
pose, myself,  were  it  not  for  the  assurance  of  the 
Saviour,  '  lie  that  believeth  in  me,  though  he  were 
dead  yet  shall  he  live.'  This  is  my  firm  hold,  and 
I  will  not  let  it  go." 

No,  there  are  no  grooves  in  which  the  experi- 
ence anterior  to  the  joy  of  pardon  must  run  long 
and  gloomily,  as  tlurough  an  unlighted  tunnel. 
The  tumultuous  conflicts  which  some  endure,  at 
a  certain  crisis  of  their  religious  history,  are  the 
conflicts  of  sin,  —  not  with  sin,  but  of  sin.  They 
are  the  sheer  obstinacy  of  guilt  resisting  its  own 
condemnation  by  the  just  mind  of  God.  They 
are  the  death-struggle  of  sin,  prolonged  only  so 
Ions;  as  the  sinner  withholds  himself  from  Christ. 
In  the  rapids  of  a  cataract,  the  bare  struggle  to 
stand  still  may  strain  the  muscles  to  agony.  So, 
in  the  midst  of  convictions  of  guilt,  and  the  striv- 
ings of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  sinner's  sheer  efl'ort  to 
remain  a  sinner  may  wrench  all  joy  out  of  him. 

3.  A  third  truth  which   should   command  the 


250  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

faith  of  one  wlio  endures  ineffectual  convictions 
of  sin  is,  that  God  is  a  sinner  8  friend.  It  seems 
irreverent  to  afl&rm  this,  as  if  a  doubt  of  it  were 
conceivable.  Yet  towards  no  other  one  truth  is 
the  human  heart  so  faithless.  The  insthict  of  siu 
is  to  look  upon  God  as  not  only  the  enemy  of  sin, 
but  the  enemy  of  the  sinner  as  well. 

Under  Christian  light,  right  here  beneath  the 
meridian  of  Christian  illumination,  men  do  not 
know  God  as  their  friend.  "-^lay  I  love  God  ?  " 
was  the  trembling  and  faithless  cjuery  of  one  peni- 
tent believer.  When  sin  dawns  upon  the  sinner's 
conscience  as  a  reality,  it  starts  up  the  thought  of 
God  as  an  enemy.  We  are  apt  to  count  that  man 
our  enemy  to  whom  we  are  enemies.  Nature  says, 
"  He  will  injure  me,  whom  I  have  injured."  Sin  is 
twin  l)rothcr  to  Hate. 

Said  an  injured  man  at  the  capital  of  our  coun- 
try, jjiistilying  himself  for  taking  the  life  of  his 
enemy,  "He  wronged  me  in  that  one  tiling  in 
which  no  man  ever  forgives  his  fellow.  He  and  I 
cannot  live  on  the  same  globe  together."  So  it  is 
human  nature  to  reason  about  God.  "  He  is  my 
enemy  because  I  am  his."  Tlie  world  seems  to  be 
losing  its  youth,  and  growing  old  before  its  time, 
in  the  struggle  of  the  ages  to  rid  itself  of  this 
Satanic  conception  of  God.  That  there  is  one 
Being  in  the  universe,  who,  with  no  taint  in  his 
ineffable  purity,  can  look  down  upon  this  world 
with    mild,   pitying,   forgiving    eyes,  —  this    one 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SEN.  251 

thought  of  God  ill  Christ  is  the  conception  of 
him  against  which  guilt  has  been  contending  for 
six  thousand  years. 

One  who  suffers  under  prolonged  and  abortive 
convictions  of  sin  should  therefore  admit  this  faith 
to  his  heart,  —  that  God  is  a  sinner's  friend.  Not 
merely  that  Christ  is  his  friend.  A  strange  and 
miuky  distortion  sometimes  gets  possession  of  us. 
It  is  that  somehow  God  and  Christ  are  not  at  one 
in  fi-iendliness  to  the  guilty.  The  idea  does  not 
define  itself  sharply.  If  it  did,  a  man's  good 
sense  would  reject  it.  But,  if  defined,  it  would 
be  something  like  this,  —  that,  while  Christ  desires 
to  save  men,  back  of  his  atoning  work  there  stands 
a  frowning  and  relentless  Deity,  who  is  averse  to 
the  whole  procedure  by  which  a  sinner  escapes 
eternal  woe.  God,  as  such,  is  eager  to  damn  a 
sinner.  The  necessities  of  his  holy  nature  are 
such  that  he  enjoys  the  outpourmg  of  his  wrath 
in  eternal  fires.  God,  as  such,  therefore,  is. the 
sinner's  enemy.  In  the  blackness  of  darkness 
which  overwhelms  a  despairing  soul,  these  two 
conceptions  of  God  as  love,  and  God  as  a  con- 
suming fire,  often  wrestle  like  masked  com- 
batants. 

In  the  final  extreme,  there  comes  about  that 
state  of  guilty  conviction  without  hope  which 
one  of  the  most  earnest  thinkers  of  England 
described  by  sajing,  "Life,  the  world,  mankind, 
religion,  eternity,  all  appear  to  me  like  one  vast 


252  STUDIES   OP   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

scene  of  confusion,  stretching  away  before  me,  and 
closed  in  shades  of  the  most  dreadful  darkness,  — 
a  darkness  which  only  the  most  powerful  splendors 
of  Deity  can  illumine,  and  which  appears  as  if 
they  never  had  illumined  it^ 

I  have  somewhere  read  a  story  of  a  man  who 
was  locked  into  a  darkened  chamber  at  midnisrht 
and  alone,  with  a  maniac  in  a  paroxysm  of  silent 
and  cunning  bloodthirst.  Crouching  141  one  corner, 
the  horror-struck  man  could  hear  the  creaking  of 
the  floor  under  the  cat-like  tread  of  the  demoniac 
as  he  crept  after  him.  He  moved  noiselessly  to 
another  corner;  but  soon  he  felt  the  magnetic 
sense  of  the  proximity  of  the  foe  he  could  not  see 
and  dared  not  touch.  Springing  past  him  in  the 
darkness,  he  could  perceive  the  taint  of  his  hot 
breath,  and  could  hear  his  quick  panting,  and 
the  grinding  of  liis  teeth  in  disappointed  rage. 
Moments  were  ages  in  the  waiting  for  the  death- 
grapple.  When  the  morning  dawned,  and  relief 
came,  and  the  windows  were  thrown  open,  his 
raven  hair  was  turned  snow-white. 

To  such  insane  companionship  does  hopeless 
guilt  doom  a  man  at  the  last  in  the  communings 
of  liis  soul  with  God.  With  trembling  reverence 
be  it  said,  if  God  were  an  Almighty  ^Maniac  he 
could  scarcely  be  an  object  of  more  profound 
terror  or  more  relentless  hate.  This  is  no  fiction. 
Some  heathen  tribes  have  worshipped  just  such  a 
god.     It  is  a  frightful  confirmation  of  the  biblical 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  253 

conception  of  sin,  that  when  the  human  niincl 
loses  all  knowledge  of  the  true  God,  the  Devil 
takes  his  place.  And  not  the  Devil  in  lofty  and 
aspiring  malignity  like  that  of  Milton's  Satan,  but 
in  grovelling  or  insane  distortions  which  the  soul 
shudders  at,  yet  yields  to.  "  Fall  down  and  wor- 
ship me,"  is  the  dread  command ;  and  it  is  obeyed. 
Demoniac  idols  in  heathen  temples  bear  a  frightful 
resemblance  to  the  faces  of  maniacs. 

Now,  so  long  as  such  a  nightmare  of  horror  as 
this  broods  over  a  man,  think  you  that  he  can 
have  peace  ? 

.  The  power  which  conquers  guilt  is  the  omnipo- 
tence of  love.  Let  it  be  repeated  and  reiterated 
therefore, — God  is  the  sinner's  friend.  Throw 
open  the  windows  to  the  light  of  heaven.  Let 
the  glory  of  God  stream  in  from  golden  skies ! 
The  whole  Godhead  is  the  sinner's  friend.  "  I  will 
rejoice  to  do  them  good  with  my  lohole  heart  and 
with  ni}^  whole  soul."  There  is  no  Nemesis  crouch- 
ing with  malign  cunning  behind  the  cross.  God 
is  never  more  the  sinner's  friend  than  in  the  very 
quickening  of  conscience  which  he  resists. 

It  has  been  said,  that,  in  such  a  world  as  this,  "  a 
man  may  have  too  much  love  to  weep."  So  in  the 
appalling  extremity  to  which  sin  has  reduced  man- 
kind, God  has  too  much  love  to  beguile  them  with 
a  maudlin  kindness  which  would  not  pain  them 
b}"  a  disclosure  of  their  guilt  to  their  own  souls. 
God  is  intent  on  their  salvation,  not  so  much  from 


254  STUDIES   OF   TftlE   OLD   TEST.V:\rEXT. 

suffering  us  Ironi  sin.  Sin  is  the  nuit'lstioni  which 
sucks  into  its  vortex  all  joy,  all  peace,  all  hope. 
God  strains  the  resources  of  his  wisdcjni  and  liis 
power  to  rescue  men  from  eternal  guilt.  He  con- 
descends to  enter  into  conflict  with  them  to  save 
them  from  themselves.  Such  is  his  faithful,  his 
enduring,  his  long-suffering,  his  overwhelming 
friendship.  His  iiitU-t'd  is  love  which  many 
waters  cannot  quench,  nor  Hoods  drown.  George 
Fox  descrihes  his  own  discovery  of  \his  truth,  in 
language  which  portrays  the  experience  of  all  who 
are  enlightened  by  the  grace  of  God.  He  says, 
"I  saw  that  there  was  an  ocean  of  darkness  and 
death.  But  an  infinite  ocean  of  light  and  love 
flowed  over  the  ocean  of  darkness  ;  and  in  that  I 
saw  the  infinite  love  yf  God." 

At  some  point  in  our  mental  history,  if  we  are 
ever  to  be  saved,  we  must  let  into  our  souls  that 
mighty  and  swelling  flood  of  benignity  which  God 
has  poured  forth  in  this  work  for  our  deliverance 
from  guilt,  and  in  wliich  the  whole  heart  of  the 
Godhead  has  been  expressed.  Said  one,  reflecting 
upon  the  disclosures  of  God  in  nature,  "Flowers 
surely  are  smiles  of  God's  goodness."  — "  Yes," 
said  his  friend  with  a  deeper  insight,  "yes;  but 
the  fairest  flower  I  ever  saw  climbing  around  a 
poor  man's  window  was  never  so  beautiful  in  my 
eyes  as  the  Bible  which  I  saw  lying  witliin."  So 
should  we  look  at  the  goodness  of  God,  as  it  is 
seen   in    the  revelation  of  the  brightness  of  the 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  255 

Father's  glory.     Nowhere  else  do  we  feel  as  we 
do  here,  that  God  is  a  sinner's  friend. 

4.  Again,  one  who  labors  under  fruitless  con- 
victions needs  to  see  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  his 
salvation  is  not  the  want  of  a  more  perfect  under- 
standing of  the  theory  of  conversion.  This  suggests 
a  peculiar  delusion  under  wliich  men  often  suffer, 
when  convinced  of  sin  without  repentance.  We 
are  apt  to  fancy,  in  such  a  state,  that  we  should 
be  saved  more  easily  if  we  understood  the  process 
more  philosophically.  Our  work  would  be  more 
practicable  if  we  could  see  into  God's  work  more 
cunningly. 

*  If  we  could  lift  the  curtain  that  hides  the  de- 
crees of  God ;  if  we  coidd  discover  how  prayer  can 
affect  the  decree  concerning  our  salvation,  which 
was  fixed  before  we  had  souls  to  save ;  if  we  could 
solve  the  riddle  of  impenitent  prayer ;  if  we  could 
satisfy  reason  as  to  the  responsibility  of  a  sinner 
whose  heart  God  has  hardened  in  some  sense,  as 
he  did  Pharaoh's ;  in  brief,  if  the  tangled  knot  of 
the  divine  and  the  human  in  one,  which  is  laced 
most  inseparably  in  the  doctrine  of  conversion, 
could  be  untwisted,  and  its  filaments  straightened 
out  side  by  side,  —  we  cannot  resist  the  feeling 
that  we  should  breathe  more  freely,  and  look 
heavenward  more  hopefully. 

The  point  I  would  emphasize,  therefore,  is  that 
the  chief  obstruction  to  a  man's  salvation  never 
lies  in  any  such  difficulty  as  that.     A  sinner  needs 


256  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

to  admit  this  iiutl  to  feel  it.  It  may  be  that  even 
a  legitimate  interest  in  the  theory  of  religion  — 
that  is,  an  intere.>>t  right  enough  in  itself,  and  at 
some  time  and  for  some  minds  important  —  is  not 
timely  to  your  mind  now  and  here.  Some  minds 
need,  for  their  healthy  and  practical  working  in 
religious  matters,  a  reduction  of  speculative  tone. 
Religious  speculation  often  reaches  a  condition 
like  that  which  medical  science  cajls  "sub-acute 
inflammation."  It  needs  to  be  reduced  to  less 
feverish  inquiry. 

Tlie  Rev.  John  Foster  of  Bristol  was  probably 
by  nature  one  of  the  most  sceptical  men  who  have 
ever  been  led  to  accept  Christ  as  a  Saviour.  It 
was  a  loner  stride  towards  the  salvation  of  such  a 
soul  as  his  when  he  was  led  to  say,  as  he  did  at 
last,  after  long  despair,  "  I  have  felt  the  neces- 
sity of  dismissing  subtle  speculations,  and  of  yield- 
ing a  humble,  c<jrdial  assent  to  mysterious  truth, 
just  as  and  because  the  Scriptures  declare  it,  with- 
out asking,  '  How  can  these  things  be  ? '  The 
gospel  is  to  me  a  matter  of  urgent  necessity.  I 
come  to  Jesus  because  I  need  pardon."  So  must 
every  sinner  come,  —  not  beguiled  by  the  solution 
of  dilEculties,  but  driven  by  a  sense  of  necessities. 
The  vast  majority  of  us  never  come  in  any  other 
way. 

5.  The  chief  obstacle  to  the  termination  of  fruit- 
less convictions  in  peace  with  God  is  to  be  found 
in  some  plain,  practical  affair  of  character  and  real 


FRTTTTLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  257 

life.  No  feeling,  I  think,  is  more  common  among 
those  who  have  found  peace  in  Christ,  after  pro- 
tracted and  remorseful  conllict,  than  the  feeling 
of  surjjrise  that  they  have  been  kept  aloof  from 
Clu-ist  so  long.  They  have  been  looking  up  into 
the  clouds,  struggling  with  aching  eyes  to  see 
visions ;  or  have  introverted  their  thoughts  upon 
themselves,  straining  to  see  their  own  eyeballs : 
while'  the  real  obstacle  to  their  conversion  has 
been  in  plain  sight  at  theii'  feet,  —  a  little  thing 
perhaps;  a  trilling  thing,  as  they  now  regard  it; 
in  comparison  with  Clirist,  a  contemptible  thing. 
They  are  humiliated  at  the  discovery  that  so  mean 
a  thing  has  had  power  to  hold  them  back  from  tlie 
wide-open  gates  of  heaven.  It  seems  to  them,  in 
the  retrospect,  like  some  invisible  and  malignant 
magic  in  the  air. 

I  have  seen  a  diseased  man  fascinated  by  a  piece 
of  magnetized  iron  not  so  large  as  my  hand.  He 
would  gaze  upon  it  as  if,  like  a  serpent,  it  had 
charmed  him.  He  would  follow  it  from  room  to 
room,  in  agony  lest  it  should  pass  out  of  his  sight. 
He  would  chase  it  in  the  street,  and  lie  down  and 
grovel  in  the  dust  where  it  was  thrown.  He 
seemed  as  if  his  spirit  had  in  part  passed  out  of 
him,  and  had  entered  that  magnet. 

Thus  demented  do  converted  men  sometimes 
seem  to  themselves  to  have  been,  when  they  look 
back  over  the  unseen  line  which  separates  them 
from  their  impenitent  life,  and  see  what  a  paltry 


258  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

thing  it  was  whicli  hold  them  so  long  transfixed  in 
those  fruitless  eonvietions,  while  a  crueillecl  Sa- 
viour was  pleading  witli  them  and  dying  for  them, 
within  reach  of  their  hand.  Such  has  been  tlie 
experience  of  thousands,  and  doubtless  will  be  of 
thousands  more. 

The  charms  by  which  the  sorcery  of  siu  thus 
bewitches  men  are  very  numerous,  and  diverse  in 
character.     In  one  man  it  is  a  distrust  of  God's 
willingness  to  save,  or,  if  to  save,  to  save  Jiim.     In 
another,  it  is  an  unwillingness  to  own  the  simi)li- 
city  of  God's  methods  of  salvation.     In  another  it 
is  a  desire  for  a  gorgeous  experience,  like  that  of 
exceptional  Christian   memoirs.     In  the  Viist  ma- 
jority, however,  it  is  not  in  any  conceptions  cher- 
ished about  the  way  of  salvation,  but  in  something 
altogether  more  tangible  and  earthly.     The  whole 
truth  is,  that  the  man  loves  gom»thln(f  more  than 
God.     In  one  it  is  his  property ;    in  another,  his 
reputation ;  iu  another,  his  ease ;  in  another,  his 
literary  tastes  ;  in  another,  an  unchristian  employ- 
ment  or   habit  or   association,  which  he  feels  to 
be  at  war  with  an  earnest  Chi'istian  life.     He  fore- 
sees, that,  if  he  becomes  a  Christian,  that  must  be 
given  up.     In  some  it  is  an  unwillingness  publicly 
to  profess  religion,  to  perform  certaui   public   or 
social  religious  duties,  to  encounter  the  ridicule  of 
companions,  or  to  forgive  an  injury  which  rankles 
in  the  heart. 

Some  such  verv  simple  thing  is  the  citadel  in 


FRUITLESS   CONVICTIONS   OF   SIN.  259 

which  tlic  forces  of  guilty  resolve  intrench  them- 
selves. That  is  the  secret  reason  why  tfie  soul  is 
benighted  in  impotent  convictions.  Yet  what  a 
meanness  of  spirit  does  it  seem  to  have  indicated 
when  the  soul  comes  out  into  the  liberty  of  Clirist, 
to  have  shut  itself  up  in  that  prison-house  of 
remorse  so  long,  and  for  such  a  tiling  ! 

I  have  somewhere  read  of  an  obscure  Scotch 
w:bman  whom  Dr.  Chahners,  as  the  story  ran,  was 
once  summoned  at  midnight  to  attend  in  her  last 
hours.  She  had  lived  for  many  years  in  sterile 
conviction  of  her  sinfulness,  llor  anguish  at  last 
threatened  her  reason.  "•  Weighed  in  the  Ijalances, 
and  found  wanting !  "  Tliis  was  the  Inirden  she 
was  carrying  into  eternity.  With  that  Idndly 
sympathy  and  tact  for  which  Chalmers  was  noted 
in  his  ministrations  to  the  ignorant,  he  sat  down 
by  her  side,  heard  the  story  of  her  life,  now  and 
then  aiding  her  to  state  her  o^vn  case,  for  he  knew 
it  better  than  she  did ;  and  at  length,  when  she 
had  been  calmed  by  the  expression  of  her  burden, 
he  pointed  out  to  her  the  one  simple  thing  wliich 
he  conjectured  to  have  been  the  thing  that  had 
withheld  her  fi'om  Clirist.  The  profoundest  doc- 
trine of  our  theology  he  told  her  as  a  simple  story 
in  her  own  Lowland  dialect,  and  then  told  her,  in 
the  same  rude  speech  of  her  childhood,  that  she 
must  give  up  that  thing  for  Christ's  sake.  The 
heavy-laden  one,  who  had  borne  her  infirmity  for 
many  years,  and  could  in  no  wise  lift  up  herself. 


2G0  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

looked  up  and  said,  but  lialf  believing,  "  And  is 
that  a*?"  It  was  as  it"  the  Lord  himself  had  hiid 
his  hand  upon  her.  Immediately  she  was  made 
straight,  and  ghiritied  God. 

So,  many  a  penitent  believer  at  the  last  recalls 
his  bondage  in  sin,  and  exclaims,  "Is  tluit  all  that 
kept  mo  so  long  uwuy  from  Christ  ?  " 


THE  MEN  IN  THE  FIRE. 

Sliadrarli,  M«'sluuh,  and  AbedncKO  answered  and  said  to  the 
kHip,  O  N<'l)iiclia«ln«'Z7Jir,  wo  aro  not  carfful  to  answer  thee  in 
this  matter.  If  it  he  so,  our  God  whom  we  serve  is  al>le  to  deliver 
us  from  tlie  huruiii);  liery  furnace,  and  he  will  (lili\<r  us  out  of 
thy  hand,  O  kiu};;.  But  if  not,  he  it  known  unto  tliee,  O  kin^, 
that  we  will  not  ser^e  thy  rcmIs,  nor  worship  the  golden  imago 
which  thou  hast  set  up.  —  Das.  iii.  IG-IS. 

FEW  men  have  the  fortitude  to  bear  the  appli- 
cation of  the  moxa.  When  Senator  Sumner 
was  once  inquired  of,  whether  lie  found  it  intoler- 
able, he  evaded  the  query,  saying,  ''  Well,  fire  is 
fire.  I  believe  the  world  has  no  two  opmions 
about  that."  When  St.  Paul  would  express  the 
severity  of  the  trial  of  the  eternal  judgment,  to 
which  every  man's  work  in  life  is  to  be  subjected, 
he  terms  it  "the  trial' as  by  fire." 

Yes,  fire  is  fii"e.  Men  in  a  furnace  at  white  heat 
are  not  blamable,  as  the  world  judges,  if  they 
fling  religious  scruples  to  the  winds.  If  wise  men 
grow  mad,  if  calm  men  become  furious,  if  honest 
men  are  false,  if  devout  men  swear,  the  world 
finds  no  heart  to  rebuke  them ;  for  are  they  not 
men  in  the  fire? 

Not   so   thought   and   reasoned   and  acted  the 

261 


2G2  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^VMENT. 

three  youtlifiil  victims  of  Chaldicaii  vengeance. 
They  stand  at  tlie  head  of  tlie  long  line  of  mar- 
tyrs by  fire  in  Christian  liistory.  Thousands  in 
later  times,  some  even  younger  tlian  they,  have 
walked  calmly  to  the  stake,  cheered  by  the  words 
of  these  young  Hebrew  exiles.  Their  great  ser- 
vice to  the  world  of  subsequent  ages  is  their 
teaching;  bv  word  and  act  the  nature  and  the  work- 
inif  of  a  rr!it/i'>n  nf  prinnple. 

1.  They  illustrate  the  truth  that  a  religion  of 
l)rineiple  is  founded  mi  intellii/ent  convictions  of 
truth,  HO  fixed  in  the  heart  an  to  he  beyond  the  reach 
of  ari/ument.  Their  answer  to  the  king's  com- 
mand has  been  the  watchword  of  martyrs  from 
that  day  to  tiiis :  ••  \Ve  are  not  careful  to  answer 
thee  in  this  matter.  .  .  .  But  be  it  known  unto 
thee,  O  king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy  gods." 

There  is  a  stateof  religious  experience,  possible 
to  every  Christian,  of  whieli  this  is  a  sample.  It 
is  a  state  in  whieh  the  believer  no  longer  needs 
argument  to  support  his  cQnvictions,  and  is  no 
longer  open  to  argument  against  them.  Certain 
central  truths  of  religion  are  fixed  in  his  very 
soul.  They  have  been  settled  once  for  all  and 
forever.  An  oak  of  a  hundred  years'  growth  is 
not  rooted  so  immovably.  They  are  thus  settled, 
because  they  have  become  matters  of  experience. 
They  long  ago  passed  out  of  the  realm  of  theory 
into  the  realm  which  Whitefield  called  "  soul-life." 
The  believer  no  longer  believes :  he  knows.     His 


THE   MEN   IN  THE   FrRE.  263 

faith  has  become  his  life.  It  has  passed  into  the 
same  rank  of  truths  as  that  of  gravitation.  It 
gives  to  the  whole  religious  being  of  the  man  a 
certain  planetary  fixedness  and  serenity,  like  those 
of  Orion  and  the  Pleiades.  Canst  thou  loose  the 
bands  of  Orion  ? 

On  such  foundations  a  religion  of  principle  is 
built.  Wlicn  infidelity  assails  it,  when  ridicule 
scoffs  at  it,  when  science  disproves  it,  when  au- 
thority forbids  it,  when  fire  and  sword  and  gibbet 
would  crush  it,  its  calm  reply  is,  ''We  are  not 
careful  to  answer  thee,  but  we  will  not.''  In 
these  very  words  the  father  of  the  Wesleys  sent 
back  his  answer  to  an  iniquitous  order  from  James 
II.  of  England. 

Wlien  Philip  11.  of  Spain  sent  ''Alva  the 
Butcher  "  on  his  crusade  against  the  people  of  the 
Netherlands,  thousands  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren sent  back  from  the  scaffold  and  the  stake 
these  words  of  calm  defiance :  *•  ^Ve  are  not  care- 
ful to  answer,  but  be  it  known  that  we  will  not 
obey."  Children  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age 
used  to  imitate  in  solemn  sport  the  scene  of  the 
auto-da-fe,  in  token  of  their  resolve  to  die  in  the 
faith  of  theu*  fathers.  And  when  the  sport  be- 
came grim  realit}',  and  their  tender  limbs  shrivelled 
and  crackled  in  the  flames,  they  did  not  flinch. 
That  was  the  religion  of  principle,  uttering  itself 
from  the  depths  of  a  '*  soul-life,"  which  had  out- 
lived the  need  of  argument  to  support  it,  and  the 
power  of  argument  to  change  it. 


2G4  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD  TESTAl^rENT. 

What  could  those  children  know  of  the  arrru- 
ment  for  Christian  trntii,  which  ages  of  debate 
and  of  august  councils  had  elaborated  ?  They 
neither  knew,  nor  cared  to  know.  They  had  re- 
ceived from  God  a  profounder  teacliing.  Theirs 
was  an  experience  of  truth  in  the  soul's  life. 
They  knew  it  l)ecause  they  had  livtul  it.  Thoy 
coidd  as  easily  have  been  argued  out  of  their  faith 
in  the  sunrise,  as  out  of  their  faiUi  in  Christ. 
Just  that  kind  of  evidence  and  that  degree  of 
conviction  are  the  privilege  of  every  child  of  God. 

2.  The  religion  of  principle  consists  pre-emi- 
nently in  obedience  to  the  senne  of  duti/,  without  re- 
gard to  con»equenceH.  So  far  as  it  appears  from  the 
story  of  these  "  men  in  the  fire,"  this  wfis  their 
reasoning,  and  the  whole  of  it :  "  We  have  only 
to  do  rijht,  in  the  fear  of  God."  Not  a  word  is 
uttered  from  which  we  can  infer  that  they  think 
for  one  moment  of  what  is  or  is  not  expedient. 
They  are  in  a  strait  in  whicli  they  may  well  be 
pardoned  if  they  do  ask  themselves :  "  Can  we 
not  somehow  save  our  lives  ? "'  Not  a  word  of 
that  sort  appeare,  except  a  sublime  assurance  that 
God  will  save  them,  but  a  more  sublime  purpose  to 
obey  him  whether  he  will  or  not.  No  nice  points 
occur  to  them  to  be  settled ;  no  possible  evasions ; 
no  concealment  of  their  convictions;  no  hiding  of 
their  purposes. 

Volumes  have  been  written  by  wise  men  on 
questions  relating  to  possible  escape  from  martyr- 


THE  MEN   IN   THE   FIRE.  265 

dom  by  crafty  victims.     "  May  a  man  lie  to  save 
his  life  from  the  llames?     Has  an  enemy  to  God 
a  right  to  know  the  truth  from  one  to  wliom  a 
disclosure  of  the  truth  is  death?     How  much  of 
one's  faith  may  one  hold  in  secret,  under  threat 
of  axe  and  gibbet  ?    For  wife  and  children  may  not 
a  man   lie,  when  lie  would  not  to  save  his  o\vti 
life  ?  "     Said  one,  "  I  will  not  tell  one  falsehood  to 
sAve'  my  life,  but  I  will  tell  ten  to  save  my  boy." 
Not  a  liint  of  any  such  Jesuitical  strategy  do  these 
victims   of  pagan   ferocity  give   us.     There    is   a 
magnificent  iiln<j  of  self-abandonment  in  their  sole 
cesolve  and  its  bold  avowal,  "  Be  it  known  that  we 
will  not."'     Moreover,  the  grandeur  of  the  whole 
procedure  is  that  their  conscience  is  so  eagle-eyed 
as   to   see  the  right  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 
They  are  not  startled  into  a  momentary  equivoca- 
tion.    When  good  men  deny  Christ,  they  are  com- 
monly surprised  into  it.     Not  so  these  three  cap- 
tives of  the  fire.     They  might  be  the  three  "  wise 
men  of  the  East,"  for  their  self-collected  and  clear- 
headed discernment  of  the  right.     With  the  hell 
of  the   furnace   in   the   one   scale,   and   beautiful 
young  life  in  the  other,  there  is  not  an  instant  of 
doubt  which  shall  kick  the  beam.     Said  a  Roman 
general,  when  urged  to  save  his  life  at  the  cost  of 
his  honor,  "■  It  is  necessary  that  my  honor  shoidd 
live :  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  should."     So  say 
these  gentle  youth,  as  they  look  into  the  mouth  of 
that  white  furnace :  "  It  is  necessary  that  "we  be 
true  to  God :  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  live." 


266  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Alwa3'-s  is  it  characteristic  of  a  religion  of  prin- 
ciple, that  it  gives  small  place  to  (juestions  of  ex- 
pedienc}',  exce])t  where  the  right  depends  on  the 
exi)t'dient.  The  strengtli  of  godly  principle  is 
proportiontMl  to  its  godly  simj)licity.  It  works 
with  a  noble  independence  of  complicated  motives 
and  the  intricacies  of  diplomacy.  It  never  undir- 
mines  a  dnty  by  qnestions  of  casuistry.  Twists 
and  d()ul)lings  of  conscience  are  no*  to  its  taste. 
Straight  on  it  moves,  to  life  if  it  may,  to  death 
if  it  must.  This  gives  to  such  a  type  of  religious 
character  a  marvellous  power  when  confronted 
witli  tliis  world  of  stratagem  and  duplicity. 

The  old  mythology  tells  a  story  of  a  labyrinth 
of  three  thousand  cliambei*s,  so  contrived  that  no 
man  had  ever  come  out  of  it  alive.  The  victim 
doomed  to  explore  its  dark  recesses  wandered  on 
in  hopeless  mazes,  turning  this  way  and  that, 
doubling  on  liis  track,  confused  by  his  own  iooir 
steps,  dismayed  by  the  sound  of  the  bones  of  j)re- 
vious  victims  as  he  trampled  on  them,  till  at  last, 
worn  out  with  weariness  and  hunger  and  thirst 
and  fright,  he  laid  himself  down,  friendless  and 
alone,  to  die.  At  length  one  prisoner  bethought 
himself  of  the  simple  expedient  of  a- ball  of  silk, 
the  filament  of  which  was  scarcely  visible  to  the 
eye.  One  end  of  it  he  fastened  at  the  entrance, 
and  then  unrolled  it  as  he  advanced.  Thus  he 
explored  the  cave  of  doom,  from  whence  no  mor- 
tal   had    returned   to   the   light   of    day    before. 


THE   MEN   IN   THE   FIRE.  267 

When  he  had  reached  its  remotest  chambers  he 
had  only  to  wind  up  again  the  silken  thread,  and 
follow  it  back  to  liixht  and  life.  Such  a  filament 
of  silken  simplicity  is  duty,  to  one  who  is  sent 
into  the  intricacies  and  snares  of  tliis  world  on 
probation  for  eternity. 

3.  The  religion  of  principle  carries  with  it  a  pro- 
found sense  of  a  personal  God.  "•  Our  God  whom 
we  serve."  This  is  the  first  and  last  and  ruling 
thought  of  these  youthful  heroes.  Duty  is  no 
abstraction  to  them.  They  are  not  philosophers. 
They  are  simply  believers  in  a  living  God.  Poor 
souls !  they  know  no  better.  They  have  never 
heard  of  the  "Over-Soul"  and  the  "Soul  of  the 
world."  They  have  not  been  taught  the  dignity 
of  their  descent  from  baboons,  by  the  force  of 
"natural  selection."  Advanced  thinkers  have  not 
instructed  them  in  the  religion  of  "protoplasm." 
But  they  do  the  best  they  know,  humbly  .hoping 
that  things  will  not  go  hard  with  them  for  trust- 
ing in  a  personal  God.  They  enter  into  no  discus- 
sion of  the  Hebrew  as  compared  with  the  Chal- 
dsean  ethics.  God,  the  living  God,  is  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  the  whole  business. 

A  singula^  type  of  religious  belief — or  nega- 
tion, call  it  which  you  please  —  has  spr^ing  up  in 
our  day,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's 
history.  It  proposes  to  build  a  system  of  Chris- 
tian ethics  on  the  intuitions  of  conscience  alone, 
denying  the  authority  of  Christ  and  the  being  of 


268  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

a  God.  "Do  right,"  is  its  moral  law.  '^Obcy 
conscience."  "  Care  not  for  Jesus  of  Nazareth  : 
he  was  a  man  like  the  rest  of  us.  As  for  God, 
have  no  fear  of  liim:  he  is  a  bugaboo  of  dark 
ages." 

Never  was  a  more  unnatural  monstrosity  manu- 
factured as  tlie  basis  of  a  i)ractical  relij^ion  for 
men  in  tlicir  riglit  minds.  The  Tartar  who  made 
his  windmill  do  his  praying  for  him,  and  the 
Frcnc-hman  who  politely  left  liis  card  on  the 
cathedi'al  altar,  liad  not  a  more  ignoble  notion  of 
relitrion.  A  healthv  mind  recoils  from  it  as  an 
absurdity. 

To  such  a  mind,  duty  and  God  are  correlative 
ideas.  Each  is  inseparable  from  the  other.  The 
force  of  each  corresponds  to  the  force  of  the  otiier 
in  the  faith  of  the  believer.  Talk  to  a  man  of 
duty,  and  his  instinctive  query  is,  "  Duty  to 
whom?"  Tell  a  man  that  he  ow/ht,  and  he  re- 
joins,  "Ought?  why?"  "Ought"  implies  obliga- 
tion: obligation  to  whom?  The  very  structure 
of  the  language  mirrors  a  penson.  It  means  that 
or  nothinjx.  This  mysterious  indweller  which  we 
call  "  conscience,"  and  which  is  the  still  guest  of 
every  man,  is  simply  God  writing  liis  will  on  the 
walls  of  tjie  soul's  inner  chambers.  It  is  impera- 
tive as  God  is,  pure  as  God  is,  deathless  as  God 
is.  To  hold  to  conscience,  and  deny  God,  is  to 
grasp  the  shadow,  and  reject  the  substance. 

The  New  Enfjlimd  Pilgrims  have  been  lauded 


THE   MEN   IN   THE   FFRE.  2G0 

for  the  strength  of  their  religious  principle  in  not 
landing  on  the  coast  of  Plymouth  on  the  Lord's 
Day.  Sixty-six  da3's  they  had  spent  in  a  ship  of 
but  a  hundi-ed  and  eighty  tons'  burden.  Some 
were  prostrate  with  disease.  The  shi})  had  sprung 
a  leak.  It  would  have  been  a  great  comfort  to 
them  to  have  set  foot  once  more  on  solid  land. 
But  the  day  was  holy  time.  They  would  not  do 
vipleuce  to  their  consciences  by  needless  labor. 
They  waited  in  the  close  and  comfortless  cabin  till 
the  sabbath's  sun  went  down.  The  world  has 
rung  with  their  praises  from  that  day  to  this,  for 
that  act  of  sacrifice  to  a  principle  of  conscience. 

But  how  did  those  devotees  of  conscience  spend 
those  hours  of  holy  time  ?  Did  they  engage  in 
mystic  converse  on  the  dignity  of  man,  the  su- 
premacy of  conscience,  the  godhead  of  self?  Did 
they  commune  with  each  other  upon  tlie  sublimity 
of  law  without  a  lawgiver ;  of  conscience  without  a 
God;  of  Christianity  without  a  Christ?  Did  they 
amuse  themselves  with  an}'  such  religious  cat's- 
cradle,  experimenting  to  see  how  many  senseless 
and  useless  ciu-iosities  in  ethics  they  could  make 
out  of  it  ?  Not  they.  They  lifted  up  their  voices 
over  that  frozen  coast  in  songs  of  praise  and  prayer 
to  the  living  One.  I  seem  to  hear  them  singing, 
in  commemoration  of  their  deliverance  from  the 
perils  of  the  sea,  the  old  quaint  version,  by  Stern- 
hold  and  Hopkins,  of  the  eighteenth  Psalm :  — 


270  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

"  The  Lord  descended  from  above, 
And  bowed  the  heavens  hie ; 
And  iindfni^th  his  feete  lie  cast 
The  darkuesse  o£  the  skie. 

On  cherubs  and  on  cherubins 

Full  royallie  he  rode; 
And  on  the  winges  of  all  the  windes, 

Cann-  tlyiutj  alle  abroad. 

And  from  above  the  Lord  sent  downe, 

To  fetch  me  from  bi-lowe  ; 
And  pluckt  me  out  of  waters  great, 

That  would  me  overflow. 

IIo  brought  me  foorth  in  open  place, 

Wht'n-as  I  nught  b*-  fr»'e ; 
And  kept  me  safe  because  he  had 

A  favour  unto  mee." 

To  them  right  living  was  living  to  God.  Con- 
science was  but  the  echo  of  God's  voice.  The 
right  was  but  the  record  of  God's  will.  A  per- 
sonal and  living  Being,  a  faithful  and  present 
Friend,  was  the  power  which  made  conscience, 
the  right,  duty,  all  that  they  were  to  those  Chris- 
tian heroes.  So  it  uill  always  be  with  men  in 
whom  religion  assumes  the  solidity  of  a  principle. 
Only  as  God  energizes  it,  can  religion  take  on  a 
form  so  grand  and  so  abiding. 

4.  The  religion  of  principle  is  the  only  type  of 
religious  character  u'hich  commands  the  confidence  of 
the  world.     Who  would  have  pretlicted  that  three 


THE  MEN   m   THE  FIRE.  271 

# 

young  men,  but  a  little  above  the  age  and  rank 
of  boys,  waifs  from  a  foreign  laud  and  a  subject 
people,  exposed  at  any  moment  to  the  penalty  of 
death,  should  whi  over  to  a  new  and  despised 
religion  the  respect  of  the  haughtiest  monarch  of 
the  East?  Yet  this  was  the  fruit  of  their  daring 
defiance  of  his  commailds.  His  outraged  pride 
was  awed  by  their  fidclit}'  to  a  principle.  "  Blessed 
hre  the  God  of  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and  Abednego  ! 
There  is  no  God  that  can  deliver  after  this  sort. 
His  servants  have  yielded  their  bodies,  that  they 
might  not  worship  any  god  but  their  own  God." 
Such  is  the  outbiu-st  of  astonished  conviction  from 
{he  awe-struck  king. 

Always  and  everywhere  men  fall  back  and  give 
place  to  those  who  practise  a  religion  which  costs 
them  something.  Other  sorts  of  religion  there  are 
which  serve  their  turn  in  idle  hours  and  times  of 
ease.  There  is  a  religion  of  form,  whose  pagean- 
tries please  the  eye,  and  which  does  well  enough 
for  a  religion  of  state  on  festive  days.  There  is  a 
religion  of  taste,  in  which  music  and  architecture, 
and  the  poetry  of  a  painted  window,  may  charm 
the  fancy  of  culture  and  refinement,  when  no 
great  stress  of  real  life  is  upon  them.  There  is  a 
religion  of  feeling,  which  may  uplift  great  assem- 
blies on  great  occasions,  and  bear  them  on  waves 
of  religiosity  which  to  certain  temperaments  may 
seem  for  the  time  to  mount  up  to  the  gates  of 
heaven. 


272  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

These  reflections  and  refractions  of  religion  in 
times  of  prosperity,  when  no  emergency  tries  the 
souls  of  men,  may  do  very  well  for  thuii-  religious 
entertainment,  and  the  quieting  of  religious  fears. 
But  when  the  tug  of  real  life  comes,  when  tempta- 
tion, bereavement,  disappointment,  disease,  death, 
bring  men's  religion  to  the  proof,  these  relio^ious 
fictions  vanish  in  thin  air.  No  religious  plaything 
answers  the  purpose  then.  Men  f(^el  then  the 
need  of  something  real,  something  solid,  something 
profound,  something  godlike. 

Similar  is  the  power  of  a  religion  of  principle, 
when  viewed  as  a  spectacle  by  reverent  observers. 
Nothing  else  rouses  the  entliusiasm  of  lookers-<jn, 
and  brings  out  their  huzzas  to  the  echo,  like  a 
grand  si)ectacle  of  self-sacrifice  to  a  religious  prin- 
ciple on  a  grand  scale. 

In  1843  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  left  the 
shelter  of  the  State  Establishment.  Four  hundred 
and  seventy-five  clergymen  gave  up  their  stipends, 
the  principal  of  which  amounted  to  two  millions 
of  pounds  sterling.  They  abandoned  the  dignity 
of  association  with  a  great  empire.  They  left  be- 
hind them  the  parishes  in  which  they  and  their 
fathers  had  labored,  the  churches  in  which  they 
were  baptized,  the  Lord's  table  at  which  they  had 
ministered,  the  manses  where  their  children  had 
been  born  and  in  which  thej^  had  hoped  to  die. 
From  almost  all  that  was  dear  to  them  on  earth, 
they  went  out,  and  cast  themselves  on  their  fidelity 


THE   MEN  IN   THE  FIEE.  273 

to  each  other  and  the  promises  of  God.  Some  of 
them  had  to  worship  on  the  sea-beach  at  low  tide, 
because  the  noble  landlords  would  not  sell  or  lease 
a  foot  of  land  for  a  dissenting  chapel.  All  this 
for  one  principle  of  religious  faith,  which  iu  con- 
science they  could  not  surrender,  and  would  not 
dishonor. 

,Among  their  ablest  opponents  was  the  Hon. 
Judge  Jeffrey,  an  ornament  to  the  judiciary  of  Scot- 
land, and  one  of  the  shining  lights  of  her  literature. 
He  had  spoken  against  them,  argued  against  them, 
written  against  them,  ridiculed  their  scruples  to  the 
laist,  and  liad  predicted,  that,  to  a  man,  they  would 
yield  if  the  trial  came.  The  trial  did  come,  and 
they  did  not  yield.  The  ejected  pastors  quietly 
laid  their  protest  before  Lord  Bute,  who  was  pres- 
ent in  the  General  Assembly  as  the  representative 
of  the  Crown ;  then  turned,  and  in  solemn  silence 
left  the  reverend  judicature  in  wliich  some  of  them 
had  sat  as  leaders  for  many  years,  but  whose  dig- 
nities they  were  to  enjoy  no  more. 

As  the}''  filed  out  of  the  house,  and  marched 
down  the  High  Street  of  Edinburgh,  with  the  ven- 
erable Chalmers  —  the  foremost  man  of  all  Scot- 
land—  at  their  head,  Judge  Jeffrey  was  told  by 
a  friend,  who  came  rusliing  in  to  inform  him. 
"They  are  out  I  They  are  out!"  —  "Who  are 
out?  "  —  "  The  evangelicals.  There  they  go  down 
High  Street.  Don"t  you  hear  the  cheers  of  the 
crowd  ?  "      The  august  judge  sprang  to  his  feet, 


274  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

and,  swinging  his  hat  in  the  air  with  a  huzza  as 
hearty  as  the  loudest,  he  cried  out,  "  Three  cheers 
for  okl  Scotland  !  Nowhere  out  of  Scotland  could 
so  grand  a  thing  have  liappened !  " 

Yes,  indeed,  my  lord,  ever}'where  sacrifice  to  a 
religion  of  principle  is  a  grand  thing.  Every- 
where, in  Scotland  or  out,  it  can  be  done,  and 
nowhere  without  commanding  the  ovations  of 
lookers-on,  friend  or  foe.  Something'in  the  human 
hearts  of  us  all  exults  in  it.  Tears  of  joy  come 
in  the  telling  of  it.  Men  not  capable  of  it  them- 
selves approve  it,  trust  it,  revere  it.  It  is.  the 
only  thing  in  the  shape  of  religion  which  the}'  do 
trust  under  all  conditions  and  at  all  times. 

Is  not  this  the  t}'pe  of  religion  which  the  world 
needs  to  witness,  above  all  things  else,  to-day? 
Not  only  in  great  exigencies  and  in  sympathizing 
crowds.  No,  not  in  these  mainly.  But  in  still, 
private  life,  and  in  the  dull  round  of  individual 
toil.  We  have  religious  enthusiasm  in  great 
assemblies,  enough  and  to  spare.  We  have  great 
religious  awakenings  in  abundance,  in  which  the 
numbers  of  the  church  swell  by  myriads.  We 
have  great  religious  organizations,  societies,  insti- 
tutions, in  which  we  glory,  and  into  whose  treas- 
uries the  wealth  of  nations  flows.  Our  religion, 
in  these  developments  of  its  social  and  literary, 
and  missionary  power,  thrives,  never  more  than 
in  these  times  of  ours. 

But  there  is  a  calm  and  even  flow  of  religious 


THE  MEN  IN   THE   FIRE.  275 

principle  in  the  individual,  which  underlies  all 
these,  and  which  vitalizes  them  all.  That  is  the 
thing  which  needs  re-enforcement  and  revival. 
Does  not  the  world's  conversion  drag  for  the  want 
of  this?  Does  not  the  faith  of  the  world  in  the 
reality  of  our  religion  falter  for  the  want  of  it? 
]\Ien  look  to  see  religion  in  the  life.  They  look 
to  see  Christian  merchants  carrying  their  faitli  to 
their  counting-rooms ;  Christian  lawyers,  theirs 
before  juries ;  Christian  mechanics,  theirs  to  their 
workshops ;  .Christian  fathers  and  mothers,  theirs 
to  their  homes,  under  the  honest  eyes  of  children, 
a;nd  the  silent  criticism  of  servants.  They  are 
looking  to  see  Christian  leaders  of  society  appl}'- 
ing  tlieir  religion  to  the  settlement  of  questions 
of  social  caste,  and  tlie  choice  of  the  churches  in 
which  they  shall  worship ;  to  see  Christian  minis- 
ters carrying  theirs  into  private  life  in  the  selection 
of  places  of  professional  labor,  in  the  subordina- 
tion of  salaries  to  usefulness,  of  dignities  to  souls, 
of  literary  tastes  to  missionary  toils,  of  diplomacy 
to  godly  sincerity. 

Trades,  professions,  households,  social  usages, 
the  uses  of  property,  the  limits  of  its  increase, 
amusements,  schools,  travels,  —  the  world  is  wait- 
ing to  see  all  these  Christianized  when  in  Christian 
hands,  —  Christianized  in  the  sense  of  being  made 
ChTistUke  in  the  principles  which  govern  them. 
It  is  looking  on  to  see  if  ours  is  a  religion  ichich 
costs  us  any  thing.     Do  we  really  feel  the  sacrifice 


276  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

of  anyone  thing  for  Christ?  Does  our  life  un- 
mistakably and  inevitably  remind  men  of  Christ's 
life  ?  Does  it  probably  remind  liim  of  it  ?  Does 
he  see  in  it  of  the  travail  of  his  soul  that  which 
satisfies  him? 

This  is  tlie  style  of  questioning  by  wliieli  the 
world  is  silently  putting  our  religion  to  the  test. 
One  revival  of  a  religion  of  such  coatly  principle, 
pervading  individual  life,  Avould  be  worth  a  tliou- 
sand  revivals  of  religious  emotion  and  prayer  and 
song,  in  packed  assemblies,  if  they  stop  there. 

Yet  how  easy  it  is  to  talk  in  this  strain  I  Let 
us  who  talk  it,  live  it  I  One  of  the  early  Presby- 
terian ministers  of  Virginia  once  said,  at  the  close 
of  one  of  his  most  jjungent  sermons  of  reproof, 
"  O  my  soul,  hear  thou  this  word !  for  I  must 
preach  to  the  one  who  needs  it  most." 


THE  MAN  IN  THE  LIONS'   DEN. 

Then  said  Daniel  unto  the  king,  O  king,  live  forever.  My 
God  hath  sent  his  angel,  and  hath  shut  the  lions' mouths,  that 
thjjy  ha.ve  not  hurt  me:  forasmuch  as  hefore  him  innocency  was 
found  in  me;  and  also  hefore  thee,  O  king,  have  I  done  no  hurt. 
Then  was  the  king  exceeding  glatl  for  him,  and  commanded 
that  they  should  take  Daniel  up  out  of  the  den.  So  Daniel  was 
taken  up  out  of  the  den;  and  no  manner  of  hurt  was  found  upon 
him,  hecause  he  believed  in  his  God.  —  T>xs.  vi.  21-23. 

DO  not  some  of  us  remember  the  rude  wood- 
cut of  ''Daniel  among  the  Lions,"  which 
seemed  such  a  marvel  of  art  to  us  in  our  child- 
hood ?  We  marvelled  at  the  courage  of  the  man 
of  God  in  putting  his  arm  calmly  around  the  neck 
of  the  lion  in  the  foreground.  Would  he  do  it  if 
he  stood  in  fi'ont,  where  we  did,  and  saw  the  grim 
look  of  the  beast  face  to  face  ?  We  doubted. 
That  one  in  the  rear,  —  surely  he  was  creeping  up 
like  a  cat  from  behind,  all  ready  to  spring  upon 
his  victim.  Such  is  the  struggle  of  faith  with 
sight.  Angels  are  nowhere  in  the  comparison  with 
lions. 

More  than  a  lifetime  of  a  generation  has  passed 
with  some  of  us  since  our  faith  and  our  fancy  first 
wrestled  over  the  story;   yet  is  it  not  to-day  as 

277 


278  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAJIENT. 

fresli  as  ever?  Let  us  see  how  it  reads  to  our  ma- 
turer  wisdom. 

1.  The  story  illustrates  the  fact  that  God  often 
seems  to  crown  the  machinations  of  the  wicked  against 
the  good  with  success.  Daniel  was  the  victim  of  a 
conspiracy.  His  very  virtues  were  the  spring  of 
the  trap  laid  to  catch  him  in  an  act  of  treason. 
His  enemies  knew  their  man.  They  know  that  he 
would  be  true  to  liis  religion,  come  life,  come 
death.  The  plot  was  adroit.  It  was*  executed  to 
the  letter.  To  all  appearance  it  was  successfnl. 
Wlien  that  stone  closed  over  the  mouth  of  tliat 
den,  his  enemies  had  good  reason  to  exult  in  the 
assurance  tliat  tliey  had  seen  the  last  of  him. 
They  slept  that  night  with  grim  pleasure  in  their 
dreams,  at  the  thought  that  beasts  were  crunching 
his  bones. 

Such  is  sometimes  God's  way  of  procedure.  He 
gives  wicked  mT^n  full  swing.  He  does  not  inter- 
fere early  in  the  beginnings  of  uTong.  Not  till 
the  plot  has  ripened,  the  victim  been  insnared,  the 
den  opened,  and  the  stone  rolled  over  his  head, 
does  the  angel  of  rescue  step  in.  Many  times 
over  has  this  been  the  story  of  persecution.  The 
blackest  feature  in  the  history  of  persecutors  is 
their  fiendish  joy  at  the  suffering  of  other  men ; 
and  the  darkest  mystery  in  God's  dealing  with 
them  is  that  the  malign  pleasure  which  they  show 
does  not  provoke  God  to  destroy  them. 

Claverhouse,  the  persecutor  of  the  Covenanters, 


THE  MAN   m  THE  LIONS'   DEN.  279 

used  to  witness,  smiling,  the  agony  of  his  victims 
in  torture  by  the  thumbscrew  and  the  "  boots." 
The  "  Blood  Council,'"  in  the  Netherlands,  used  to 
celebrate  their  wholesale  executions  by  midnight 
carousals.  One  of  the  persecuting  kings  of  Eng- 
land used  to  order  decapitations  to  be  executed 
before  the  windows,  in  sight  of  liis  guests  at  the 
dinner-table.  He  sought  to  giv^e  a  relish  to  the 
royal  dessert  by  the  thud  of  the  executioner's  axe. 
He  drank  to  the  health  of  the  victim  who  begged 
for  one  hour's  reprieve.  So  secure,  so  free  from 
trepidation,  so  oblivious  of  an  avenging  God,  have 
wdcked  men  often  felt,  at  the  height  of  their  suc- 
cess, in  doing  the  work  of  devils. 

Time  was  when  the  torturing  and  burning  of 
live  men  was  a  branch  of  ordinary  and  respecta- 
ble business.  Men  chose  it  as  a  trade,  and  got 
their  living  out  of  it.  The  items  of  the  process 
used  to  be  entered  in  a  ledger,  like  a  grocer's  bill. 
Mr.  ]\lotley,  the  historian,  quotes  the  following 
from  the  old  account-book  of  a  Spanish  execution- 
er, the  original  of  which  he  found  in  the  Spanish 

archives :  — 

To  Jacques  Barra,  Dr. 
For  torturing  tAvice  John  de  Lannoy  .        10  sous. 

For  executing  said  Lannoy  by  fire      .        .        60  sous. 
For  throwing  his  remains  into  the  river     .  8  sous. 

With  such  diabolical  coolness  do  satanic  men 
execute  their  will  upon  the  friends  of  God.  And 
God  lets  them  do  it.     Oh,  poor  John  de  Lannoy  I 


280  STUDIES    OF   THE   OLD    TESTAMENT. 

Was  there  no  beinjj  in  the  universe  to  whom  thino 
a^ony  in  the  fire  was  worth  more  tlian  fifty-seven 
cents?  and  thy  pains  on  the  rack,  once  and  again, 
more  than  nine  cents  and  a  half? 

2.  The  story  of  the  man  in  the  den  illustrates, 
also,  the  insidiousness  of  sin  in  draicinij  men  into 
extremes  of  guilt  which  they  never  planned  f>r. 
Darius  was  personally  no  enemy  to  Daniel.  The 
pr(>i)het  was  his  favorite  minister,  rather.  The  king 
was  overreached  as  well  as  the  victim.  The  con- 
spiracy was  so  laid  as  to  compel  him,  from  mo- 
tives of  state  policy,  to  execute  the  vindictive  law 
against  the  first  statesman  of  the  realm.  lie 
passed  a  sleepless  night,  as  many  another  over- 
reached sinner  has  done,  in  unavailing  repentance. 

Most  truthful  is  the  whole  scene  to  the  facts  of 
real  life.  Sin  creates  sin.  r.fginning  in  vanity, 
it  ends  in  remorse.  A  little  rivulet  swells  to  an 
Amazon.  A  man  can  never  do  one  wrong  thing, 
and*with  dignity  stop  there.  Factitious  laws  of 
honor,  claims  of  usage,  bonds  of  habit,  hedge  him 
around,  press  him  down,  and  crowd  him  on  t(j 
deeper  crime.  Duellists  have  shed  blood  murder- 
ously before  God  and  their  own  consciences,  who 
still  seemed  to  themselves  to  be  unwilling  mur- 
derers. The  most  stupendous  guilt  man  ever  in- 
curred has  come  upon  him  under  stress  of  a 
tyranny  of  circumstance  which  he  himself  invited. 

Such  was  the  sin  of  Pontius  Pilate.  Well  has 
an   old   English    poet   represented   him   as  sunk 


THE  MAN   IN   THE   LIONS'   DEN.  281 

beneath  the  waves,  with  iiothiug  visible  but  his 
hands,  and  these  wasliing  themselves  eternally, 
in  vain  attempt  to  cleanse  his  soul,  and  exclaim- 
ing, lifting  up  his  head,  — 

"I  rilato  am:  the  falsest  judtje,  alas! 
And  most  unjust,  that  hy  unrighteous 
And  wicked  doom,  to  Jews  despiteous, 
Delivereil  up  the  Lord  of  life,  to  die! " 

Such  is  the  trap  of  doom  into  which  sin  allures 
its  victims.  Prol)al)ly  the  lost  sinner  never  yet 
lived  who  planned  the  end  of  his  career  at  its 
beginning.  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should 
do  this  thing?"  Yet  he  did  the  tiling.  Yes,  he 
was  a  dog.  Penitentiaries  are  filled  with  men  who 
seem  to  themselves  to  have  drifted  there  on  the 
resistless  tide  of  little  sins  swollen  into  great  sins. 
INIurderers  have  swung  on  scaffolds,  who  said  they 
were  victims  rather  than  criminals.  Hell  is  popu- 
lous with  such  victims.  Said  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton, when  dying  on  the  duelling-ground  by  the 
shot  of  Aaron  Burr,  "  I  die  like  a  fool."  So  he 
did.  It  is  the  way  of  sin  to  make  men  fools. 
The  greater  the  man,  the  greater  the  fool. 

3.  This  story  of  the  man  and  the  lions  illus- 
trates, further,  the  supremacy  of  duty  over  intrigue 
in  the  defence  of  the  right.  The  great  statesman 
of  Babj'lon  fell  before  duplicity  and  stratagem. 
Yet  the  work  of  his  defence  was  not  of  that  sort. 
He   did  not  try  to  outwit  intrigue    by  intrigue. 


282  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

Ilis  was  a  much  more  simple  and  safe  procedure. 
He  had  simply  to  do  right.  lie  said  liis  prayers 
"as  he  did  aforetime."  He  prayed  kneeling,  as 
he  had  always  done.  He  prayed  aloud,  as  had 
been  his  wont.  Three  times  a  day,  and  with 
windows  open,  he  called  on  the  God  of  his 
fathers,  as  his  mother  had  Uiught  him  in  his 
boyhood. 

A  more  atbroit  man  would  have  practised  casu- 
istry upon  himself.  A  diplomatic  saint  would 
have  shut  liis  window,  drawn  a  curtain,  prayed  in 
a  whisi)er,  lessened  the  number  of  Iiis  devotions, 
had  some  other  engagement,  if  haply  he  might 
thus  liave  saved  his  (juivering  limbs  from  the 
lions'  teeth.  Not  so  this  simple  child  of  God. 
He  was  no  Jesuit.  He  would  not  save  life  or 
limb  by  any  Machiavellian  policy.  Not  so  much 
as  by  the  lowering  of  his  voice  or  the  closing  of  a 
shutter  would  he  seem  to  fear  man  more  than  God. 

Such  is  the  grandeur  of  duty.  A  simple  thing. 
A  child  can  understand  it :  a  dying  man  can  do  it. 
Yet  the  diplomacy  of  courts  and  cabinets,  backed 
bv  the  standins:  armies  of  the  world,  is  no  match 
for  it.  Lay  it  down  as  a  first  principle  of  truth, 
tliat^  if  a  man  will  take  care  of  the  rights  God  will 
take  care  of  him.  In  the  long-run,  and  as  a 
general  rule,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  good 
man's  failure.  He  may  suffer  :  the  right  deserves 
that  sacrifice.  He  may  die :  the  right  is  worthy 
of  that  cost.     But  he  cannot  fail.     God  wQl  look 


THE   MAN   rS  THE   LIONS'    DEN.  283 

out  for  that.  As  a  general  rule,  the  drift  of 
tilings,  even  in  this  world,  is  such  that  good  men 
succeed  by  simply  doing  right.  The  weakest 
thing  in  this  world  is  a  stratagem  when  offset  by 
a  straightforward  act  of  duty  by  a  live  man.  On 
the  contrary,  it  will  commonly  be  found  that  in 
the  exceptional  case  in  which  a  good  man  does 
fail,  his  failure  is  nearly  in  proportion  to  the 
cictent  to  wliich  intrigue  has  entered  into  his 
plans  of  procedure.  Men  of  stratagem  in  God's 
service  are  not,  as  a  rule,  successful  men.  ]\len 
of  wily  conscience  are  not  the  men  of  heaviest 
weitrht.  They  are  not  the  men  who  turn  the 
scales  of  things  in  crises.  They  are  never  safe 
leaders,  nor  the  best  men. 

4.  I  am  indebted  to  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
of  recent  commentators  on  the  text,  for  the  strik- 
ing hint  that  the  story  of  Daniel  illustrates  the 
need  which  human  governments  often  experience^  of 
something  like  an  atonement  for  the  violation  of  law. 
This  Eastern  despot  acted  under  stress  of  what  he 
deemed  the  dignity  of  lavr.  Chaldsean  jurispru- 
dence provided  no  way  for  what  we  should  call 
the  constitutional  pardon  of  a  transgressor.  Once 
proved  guilt}',  he  must  suffer,  no  matter  what  his 
rank  or  the  palliations  of  his  crime.  It  was  a 
clear  case  of  conflict  between  mercy  and  legal 
justice. 

Other  human  governments  experience  the  same 
conflict.     The  great  anomaly  of  human  adminis- 


284  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTA:^IENT. 

tration  of  law  is  tlie  power  of  pardon.  Law,  as 
sucli,  knows  nothing  of  it.  Be  the  pressure  on 
the  side  of  mercy  ever  so  great,  Law  says,  "  Par- 
don !  Wliat  is  that?"  In  modern  governments, 
we  jump  tlie  diirnulty  hy  hedging  the  power  of 
pardon  somewhere,  ignoring  law.  Yet  never  is 
that  power  exercised  without  loss  to  the  prestige 
of  authority.  Murderers  take  courage  in  crime 
for  every  murderer  who  estyipes  the  sc;^fT()ld. 

Well-known  cases  have  occurred  in  which  the 
benevolent  impulses  of  an  entire  people  were  all 
one  way,  and  the  necessities  of  law  were  all  the 
other  way  ;  and  benevolence  was  impotent,  and 
law  triumphant. 

Such  was  the  conflict  between  justice  and 
mercy,  when  Major  Andr<*,  the  British  spy,  was 
condemned  to  death  by  the  American  courts 
martial.  Probably  Washington  never  set  his 
hand  to  a  document  which  cost  him  a  more 
severe  struggle  than  that  caused  by  the  death- 
warrant  of  Andre.  But  the  safety  of  our  young 
Republic  would  not  permit  the  deed  of  mercy. 
Its  very  life  hung  in  a  trembling  scale.  Twenty 
Arnolds  might  have  been  the  fruit  of  pardoning 
one  Andre.  Therefore  said  the  commander-in- 
chief,  "  He  is  a  spy.  By  the  laws  in  war,  his  life 
is  forfeit.     He  must  die."     And  die  he  did. 

In  all  such  instances,  human  governments  be- 
tray their  need  of  something  equivalent  to  an 
atonement !  something  to  do  for  human  law  what 


THE  JIAN   IN   THE   LIONS'   DEN.  285 

the  atonement  of  Christ  does  for  the  laws  of  God 
in  the  pardon  of  the  guilt}'.  In  that  still  moment 
in  which  men  hold  tlicir  breath,  in  waiting  to  hear 
the  death-sentence  from  the  judge,  he  bows  his 
head,  and  weeps  for  some  other  way  of  vindicating 
the  eternal  sacredness  of  law  than  by  the  doom  of 
the  now  trembling  offender.  Is  there  no  other 
sacrifice,  in  earth  or  heaven,  wliich  will  take  its 
place  ?  What  else  was  the  meaning  of  the  tears 
and  the  faltering  voice  with  which  Chief-Justice 
Shaw  of  Massachusetts  pronounced  sentence  of 
death  upon  his  friend  Professor  Webster  ? 
. ;  The  argument,  therefore,  from  real  life,  is  to  this 
point :  Why  should  not  the  same  necessity  be  felt 
under  the  government  of  God  ?  Why  should  we 
believe  that  the  mind  of  the  universe  could  bear 
without  moral  anarchy  the  shock  of  the  wholesale 
pardon  of  sin,  when  the  mind  of  man  cannot  bear 
the  sliock  wliich  law  suffers  in  the  pardon  of  one 
poor,  tempted  brother-man  ?  Why  should  we 
not  believe  that  infinite  justice  feels  the  need  of 
some  device  for  the  protection  of  its  sacredness, 
when  a  world  of  criminals  goes  free  ?  And  why 
should  we  not  believe,  on  the  authority  of  God's 
word,  that  infinite  wisdom  has  found  it  in  the 
de\'ice  of  an  atonement  by  the  sinless  yet  dying 
Son  of  God? 

5.  The  story  of  the  man  in  the  den  suggests  yet 
further,  that  God's  deliverance  of  the  good  is  often 
hy  methods  in  which  the  marvellous  borders  upon  the 


286  STlTilES   OF   THE  OIJ3   TESTAMENT. 

miraculous.  The  closing  of  the  linn's  month  for 
the  safety  of  the  prophet  was  a  miracle.  What, 
then,  can  we  learn  from  this  feature  of  the  story? 
Not  that  we  are  to  look  for  miraculous  interven- 
tions in  our  l)ehalf.  Not  that  we  are  to  expect 
angels  to  come  to  our  rescue  from  wild  beasts  and 
wilder  men.  The  i)rinciple  which  governs  God's 
interference  with  the  natural  and  probable  course 
of  things  is  this,  —  that  lie  will  do  foj  us  what  he 
sees,  in  his  infinite  insight  and  foresight,  to  be 
best,  all  things  considered,  and  for  all  persons  con- 
cerned;  and  that  in  doing  this  he  often  achieves 
results  which  are  as  distinctly  suggestive  of  his 
agency  as  miracles  are.  In  such  deliverances, 
devout  minds  will  see  Crod  as  clearly  as  if  he 
spoke  audibly  from  the  heavens,  or  as  if  one  heard 
the  wings  of  angels  rustling  in  the  air. 

The  story  of  the  lions  in  the  den  recalls  in- 
cidents very  like  it  in  the  experience  of  African 
travellers.  Mungo  Park  once  found  himself  con- 
fronted by  a  raging  lion,  against  which  he  had  no 
other  available  weapon  than  the  look  of  his  eye. 
Yet  the  beast  which  had,  a  moment  before,  come 
bounding  and  roaring  towards  him,  stopped  sud- 
denly, looked  abashed  upon  the  ground,  and  then 
turned  and  slunk  away. 

Another  traveller  in  Afric^an  wilds  was  once 
actually  seized  by  a  hungry  lion,  thrown  to  the 
ground,  and  had  begun  to  feel  the  mysterious 
anaesthesia  which  the  magnetism  of  wild  beast^i  is 


TIIE   ALVN   IN   THE   LIONS'    DEN.  287 

said  to  produce  in  tlii'ir  victims,  when  suddenly 
openin<3'  his  eyes,  and  fixing  them  steadily  on  the 
eye  of  the  beast,  he  saw  that  its  bloodshot  look 
wavered.  The  soul  of  the  beast  recognized  the 
soul  of  its  natural  lord.  He  let  go  his  hold  on 
the  prostrate  man,  turned  with  tail  between  liis 
legs,  and  tied. 

In  these  coses  there  was  no  miracle.  But  were 
those  saved  victims  idiots  in  kneeling  there  on  the 
desert,  and  offering  up  thanks  to  an  unseen  power? 
jNlarvel  or  miracle,  it  matters  little  what  we  call 
it,  the  agency  of  God  in  such  events  is  beyond 
question.  Whether  he  works  by  a  miraculous  siis- 
pinsion  of  the  laws  of  nature,  or  by  a  marvellous 
u»e  oi  those  laws,  what  matters  that?  Sufficient 
is  it  that  he  makes  himself  known  to  us  as  a  very 
present  help  in  our  emergency. 

With  such  tokens  of  God's  presence,  does  not 
every  human  life  abound?  I  know  a  man  who 
believes  that  he  was  once  wakened  by  a  supernat- 
ural influence  from  slumber,  at  the  critical  moment, 
in  time  to  save  his  child  from  his  burning  dwell- 
ing. One  moment  more,  and  it  would  have  been 
too  late.  Another  believes  that  by  an  unaccount- 
able impression  upon  his  mind  he  was  turned 
back  from  a  journey  to  his  home,  to  save  his  fam- 
ilv  from  nocturnal  burglars.  Another  was  so 
beset  by  providential  hinderances  as  to  prevent  his 
embarking  on  board  a  ship  which  was  never  heard 
of  after  leaving  port.     President  Lincoln  believed 


288  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

that  he  wiis  forewaniecl  of  some  great  catastrophe 
a  night  or  two  before  his  death.  The  hist  day  of 
his  life  he  spent  under  the  shadow  of  eternity. 
Who  of  us  does  not  know  of  such  events,  which, 
if  they  were  woven  into  a  romance,  the  worhl 
wouhl  pronounce  unnatural,  if  not  absurd?  Yet 
who  of  us  can  help  believing  ?  Yes,  in  every 
human  life,  truth  /«  stranger  than  fiction. 

0.  Tlie  story  of  Daniel  ilhistrates,  finally,  the 
fact  that  the  rescue  of  the  good  often  involves  the  de- 
structio'n  of  the  wicked,  by  a  very  sid'tle  law  which 
may  he  called  the  laic  of  retributive  re-action.  The 
enemies  of  the  prophet-statesman  fell  when  he 
was  restored.  'Die  scales  were  held  by  an  even 
and  steady  hand.  When  one  went  up,  the  other 
went  down.  Though  the  revulsion  came  about 
by  the  caprice  of  a  despot,  yet  God  used  that 
caprice  as  the  motor  to  the  execution  of  a  pro- 
found law  which  often  appears  in  his  adminis- 
tration of  tlie  world.  Providential  retribution, 
upon  ungodly  nations,  occurs  largely  in  the  way 
of  re-action  from  the  oppression  of  the  good  by  the 
violence  and  the  machinations  of  the  wicked.  Tlie 
destinies  of  the  good  and  the  bad  are  so  bound 
up  together,  that  the  salvation  of  the  one  is  often 
by  necessary  sequence  the  doom  of  the  other.  A 
late  writer  has  said  that  the  most  characteristic 
thing  which  this  world  has  to  show  to  other 
worlds  is  a  scaffold  on  the  morning  of  an  exe- 
cution.    What   for,  but  for  the  stress  which  the 


THE  MAN   IN   THE   LIONS*   DEN.  289 

security  of  the  innocent  lays  upon  law  to  afflict 
the  guilty  ? 

Do  we  not  remember  how  our  childish  sense  of 
retributive  justice  responded  approvingly  to  the 
story  as  it  ran  :  that  "  the  lions  had  the  mastery  " 
of  those  bad  men,  and  '"•  brake  all  their  bones  in 
pieces  or  ever  they  came  to  the  bottom  of  the 
<l('u"?  We  did  not  know  our  feeling  by  any 
high-sounding  philosophic  title.  "  Retributive  jus- 
tice "  we  knew  nothing  about ;  but  did  we  not  put 
the  case  to  the  same  purpose  in  oiir  childish  way, 
saying,  "  It  served  them  right"?  Were  we  not 
sensible  of  a  mysterious  satisfaction,  down  deep 
within  us,  which  oui*  unsophisticated  conscience 
did  not  call  cruelty?  Children  are  not  by  nature 
believers  in  the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation. 

Turn,  then,  the  argument  to  the  mystery  of  an 
eternal  hell.  How  do  we  know  that  the  safety  of 
the  good  in  eternity,  and  throughout  the  universe  of 
peopled  space,  does  not  involve,  by  this  law  of  re- 
tributive re-action,  the  punishment  of  the  wicked? 
IIow  do  we  know  that  heaven  and  hell  are  not  so 
bound  together  in  the  meshes  of  moral  govern- 
ment over  free  beings,  that  the  one  cannot  exist 
without  the  other? 

Sin  matured,  be  it  remembered,  is  no  longer  the 
silken  and  polite  depravity  which  for  the  most 
part  it  assumes  to  be  in  this  world.  It  takes  on 
the  form  of  demoniacal  hostility  to  God  and  to  all 
holy  beings.    Consolidated  in  that  mould  of  malign 


200  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAJfENT. 

chiiiucicr,  iL  vuluiitarilv  chouscn  lo  remain  forever. 
It  is  ener<^ized  by  spiritual  })Owers  of  wliich  we  in 
the  body  have  no  conception.  We  tlo  not  know 
what  resources  of  temptation,  of  senile,  of  direct 
assault  and  resistless  conquest,  may  be  inherent 
in  the  very  nature  of  a  lost  soul,  set  free  from  the 
limitations  of  a  sensuous  body.  Whatever  the 
soul  might  have  been  iis  an  heir  of  heaven,  so 
great  it  must  be,  perhajjs,  as  an  heir  of  hell.  The 
possibilities  of  spiritual  being  are  the  same,  meas- 
ured either  way.  Whatever  its  resources  are, 
the  lost  soul  holds  them  at  the  service  of  eternal 
sin.  Heaven  has  once  been  thrown  into  consterna- 
tion by  thtin.  Angels  kept  not  their  first  estate. 
There  was  war  in  heaven.  Have  you  ever  realized 
in  your  imagination  the  i)ossibilities  of  satanic 
revolution  through  the  universe,  involved  in  that 
one  fact  of  an  angelic  fall  '.'* 

The  practical  (luestion,  therefore,  as  it  must 
present  itself  to  the  diplomacy  of  infinite  wisdom- 
in  adjusting  the  government  of  the  universe,  is 
this :  Shall  devils  and  devilish  men  be  let  loose  to 
prey  upon  the  objects  of  their  hate  forever?  Shall 
heaven  itself  become  hell?  Is  there  not  in  all  our 
hearts  an  instinct  of  upspringing  and  iron-hearted 
justice  which,  if  the  security  of  the  good  recjuires, 
by  the  law  of  retributive  re-action,  the  eternal 
confinement  of  the  incorrigibly  ^vicked,  says  in 
mournful  and  tender,  yet  firm  and  satisfied  re- 
joinder, "  Amen  and  amen  "  ?     Did  not  St.  John 


THE   M.LN    IN   THE   LIONS'   DEN.  291 

hear  soinetUing  like  this,  when  he  saw  ''  the  smoke 
of  torineut  ascending  forever  "  ?  "•  I  heard  a  great 
voice  of  much  people  in  heaven  saying,  Alk'luia! 
For  true  and  righteous  are  thy  judgments.  And 
again  they  said,  Alleluia!  And  the  smoke  of  her 
torment  rose  up  for  ever  and  ever." 

We  are  often  asked,  ''  II<»w  can  you  bear  to  be- 
lieve in  an  eternal  hull  /  Why  does  it  not  craze 
you  ?  How  can  you  call  such  a  God  as  can  create 
a  hell,  benevolent  ?  To  us  he  seems  satanic  in  his 
nature.     Yes,  your  God  is  my  Devil." 

Whenever  1  go  from  my  home  to  the  titv  of 
XJoston,  I  pass  by  a  building  which  reminds  me 
of  the  castle  of  Giant  Despair.  It  is  constructed  of 
heavy  granite  blocks  to  the  very  roof.  It  is  sur-, 
roundetl  with  lofty  granite  walls,  and  these  are 
surmounted  with  iron  spikes.  I  see  doors  of  mas- 
sive iron  riveted  with  iron  bolts.  I  see  windows 
barred  with  iiou.  liehind  those  iron  bars,  I  have 
seen  pale,  despairing  human  faces,  —  faces  wliich 
have  re-appeared  to  me  in  my  dreams.  I  know 
that  underneath  those  walls,  in  a  dungeon  cell, 
there  lives  a  man,  manacled  hand  and  foot,  who 
has  clanked  his  chains  there  for  seventeen  3'ears. 
Sometimes  more  than  five  hundred  of  my  human 
brotliers  are  locked  within  those  walls  of  living 
death. 

I  have  been  told  that  over  against  a  certain  "win- 
dow there,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  there 
lives  a  pale-faced  woman  who  never  smiles.    Every 


202  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

morning  she  places  on  litT  window-sill  ii  blooming 
flower,  where  a  certain  man  behind  those  bars  can 
see  it,  and  can  know  that  a  loving  woman  is  think- 
iiig  of  liim.  Yet  I  see,  in  a  turret  on  those  walls, 
a  man  in  uniform,  with  a  rifle  at  liis  shoulder,  who, 
if  he  sees  that  brother  man  trying  to  clamber  over 
the  walls,  and  touch  the  hand  of  that  loving  woman, 
is  instructed  to  shoot  him  down  like  a  dojj. 

Why  do  I  not  cry  out  against  the  malign  power 
which  keeps  asunder  that  suflV-ring  Aife  and  hus- 
band? Why  do  I  not  tramp  the  streets  of  Bos- 
ton, pleading  with  the  crowds  to  go  with  me,  and 
level  that  Hastillc  to  the  ground?  Why  do  I  not 
move  heaven  and  earth  against  the  infernal  t^'ran- 
ny  which  has  devised,  and  the  cold-hearted  cruelty 
which  tolerates,  that  granite  hell  ?  What  is  it  that 
sustains  my  humane  sensibilities  and  yours  at  the 
sight  of  such  an  anomaly  of  despair,  in  a  world 
where  robins  are  singing  in  the  spring-time,  and 
violets  are  blooming  on  the  hillsides,  and  little 
children  are  laughing  in  their  glee? 

Answer  me  this,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is 
that  sustains  a  benevolent  universe  in  beholding, 
and  a  benignant  God  in  devising,  an  eternal  hell 
for  the  confinement  of  eternal  guilt.  And  you 
must  prove  to  me  that  it  is  wA  so,  before  you 
can  charge  God  with  sataiiic  wrong  in  tolerating 
such  a  place  as  hell  within  the  bounds  of  his 
dominions. 

The  question  which  all  such  suspicions  of  God's 


THE   MAX   IX   THE   LIOXS'   DEN.  293 

rectitude  bring  back  like  a  boomerang  upon  the 
inquirer  is,  What  else  shall  God  do  with  eternal 
guilt?  Shall  he  forgive  it?  Shall  he,  by  one 
grand  act  of  amnesty,  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
damned,  to  the  Devil,  to  his  angels,  and  to  men 
like  them  ?  But  how  would  that  help  the  matter, 
sin  remaining  unrepented  of  and  unforsaken? 
Free  grace  proclaimed  in  hell  forever  would  not 
quench  for  one  moment  its  lurid  fires,  if  sin  were 
still  regnant  there.  Sin  is  hell.  "  Myself  am 
hell,"  says  Milton's  Satan.  Guilt  is  itself  dam- 
nation. Again  the  (piestion  returns  therefor^: 
"  What  else  shall  God  do  with  it?  " 
•  Shall  he  give  repentance,  and  then  forgive  ?  But 
that  is  the  very  thing  he  has  been  offering  from 
the  first.  Never  will  man  or  devil  see  the  moment 
when  lie  cannot  repent  if  he  would.  But  that 
is  the  very  thing  from  which  the  incorrigible  sin- 
ner recoils.  He  will  have  none  of  that.  Repent- 
ance means  submission.  Better  hell  than  that. 
Such  is  the  relentless  choice  of  the  doomed  one. 
Doomed  because  self-doomed.  Doomed  by  the 
fearful  omnipotence  of  liis  own  free-will.  Noth 
ing  else  which  it  is  in  God's  power  to  offer  does 
he  spurn  from  him  with  such  concentration  of  ob- 
diu-ate  and  vmdictive  resolve.  Hi>^  whole  being: 
revolts  from  it  with  the  intensity,  at  last,  of  ages 
of  accumulated  and  malign  passion. 

Such  Is  SIX" :    once  chosen  and  implanted  and 
indurated  in  the  very  nature  of   man,  by  a  life 


204  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

of  abused  probation,  in  which  the  grace  of  God 
has  been  scorned,  and  the  blood  of  Clu'ist  out- 
raged. Once  more,  then,  the  question  comes  back 
unanswL'red:  "  What  else  shall  God  do  with  it?" 
Through  all  eternity,  that  is  the  question  wiiich 
infinite  benevolence  will  ask  of  an  awe-struck  yet 
satisfied  and  adoring  universe :  "  W/tat  else  shall 
God  do  with  it?'' 


THE  FULFILMENT  OF  rROPIIECY  IN  THE 
CAREER  OF  CYRUS. 

Now  in  tho  first  year  of  C\tus,  king  of  Persia,  that  tho  word 
of  the  Lonl  six)kon  Ity  flic  mouth  of  Jeremiah  might  he  aocom- 
l)lishe(l,  the  Lord  stirred  up  the  sjtirit  of  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia, 
that  he  made  a  proclamation  throughout  all  his  kingdom,  and 
jMit  it  also  iu  ^^Titing.  .  .  .  Thus  saith  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia, 
All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  hath  the  Lord  God  of  heaven 
given  me;  and  he  hath  eharged  me  to  huild  him  a  house  in 
Jerusalem,  which  is  in  Judah.  Who  is  there  among  yon  of  all 
his  people  ?  The  Lord  his  God  he  with  him,  and  let  him  go 
up.  —  2  Chkon.  xxxvi.  22,  23. 

AN  eminent  Jewish  scholar  once  read  for  his 
entertainment  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  As 
he  read,  liis  curiosity  deepened  into  a  more  solemn 
interest.  A  second  time  he  read  it,  and  liis  face 
grew  pale.  The  closing  scenes  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord  enchained  liis  attention  as  never  before. 
When  he  read  for  the  third  time  of  the  death  and 
burial  of  Christ,  he  dashed  the  book  across  the 
room,  exclaiming  with  an  oath,  "  Yes,  the  story  is 
true !  The  cursed  Nazarene  was  the  Messiah  of 
the  prophets."  The  evidence  which  had  con- 
vinced him  against  his  will  was  the  exactness 
with  wliich  the  biography  of   Jesus  talhed  with 

295 


206  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD  TESTA3IENT. 

the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  ^\Tittcn  seven  hundred 
years  heiore. 

The  fuUihiient  of  prophecy  is  one  of  the  two 
supernatural  arguments  for  the  truth  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. I  can  think  of  no  more  valuable  use  which 
I  can  make  of  this  portion  of  Holy  Scripture  than 
to  present  in  some  detail  the  fulfilment  of  proph- 
ecy in  the  career  and  conquests  of  C}tus.  If  my 
young  readers  will  have  patience  to  follow  me  into 
some  of  the  minute  declarations  of  Isaiah,  I  think 
they  will  be  rewarded  by  information  which  may 
be  of  lifelong  value  to  them. 

Ill  order  to  api)reciate  the  comparison  of  the 
Itrophecy  with  the  history,  it  is  necessary  to  ob- 
serve, as  a  preliminary,  that  Isaiah  wrote  not  less 
than  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  before  Cyrus  was 
born,  and  not  less  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before  his  conquest  of  liabylon.  It  was  long 
before  the  Median  kingdom  existed.  The  cap- 
tivity of  Judah  had  not  begun.  Three  or  four 
generations  lived  and  died  between  the  prophet 
and  the  Persian  prince.  The  prophet  could  not 
possibly  have  other  means  of  kno^^■ing  who  C}tus 
was  to  be,  or  what  he  was  to  do  in  the  world,  than 
the  shnple  revelation  of  the  facts  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  Yet  that  he  foretold  the  conqueror's  career, 
down  to  minutest  details,  is  established  by  precisely 
the  same  kind  and  amount  of  evidence  .which 
proves  that  either  Cyrus  or  Isaiah  existed  at  all. 
Bear  this  in  mind  as  we  go  on  with  the  story. 


THE  FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY,  297 

What,  then,  does  the  prophet  tell  us  of  the  Per- 
Bian  hero,  which  history  confirms  ?  The  following 
are  the  most  singular  coincidences  between  the 
two:  — 

1.  The  name  of  Cyrus,  the  point  of  the  compass 
indicative  of  his  birthplace,  and  the  direction  of 
his  march  upon  Bahylon,  are  distinctly  foretold. 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord  to  Cyrus.  I  have  raised  up 
erne  from  the  north.  From  the  rising  of  the  sun 
—  that  is,  from  the  east  —  shall  he  call  upon  my 
name."  The  two  points  of  the  compass  named  in 
this  language  of  Isaiah  are  singularly  true.  Cj^rus 
Tvas  born  in  Persia,  which  was  east  of  Babylon. 
It  was  commonly  called  "  the  East."  One  his- 
torian speaks  of  it  as  the  "  land  of  the  sun-rising." 
But  at  a  very  early  age  Cyrus  was  removed  to 
Media,  lying  on  the  north  of  Babylon  ;  and  it 
was  from  Media  that  he  came  down  at  the  head 
of  victorious  hosts  upon  the  doomed  capital.  The 
prophet  thus  sees  in  a  vision  a  prince  of  eastern 
birth,  marching  upon  the  city  from  the  north,  and 
that  liis  name  is  Cyrus. 

Small  matters  these,  but  all  the  more  significant 
for  that.  The  question  is,  Who  told  Isaiah  such 
minute  details  about  a  man  he  never  saw  or  heard 
of ;  coming  from  a  kingdom  which  at  that  tune 
had  no  existence ;  achieving  a  conquest  which 
then  had  not  been  dreamed  of?  How  did  he 
know  what  name  the  future  conqueror  would 
bear,  a  hundi-ed  and  thirty  years  before  he  had  a 
name  ? 


208  STFDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTA^rENT. 

Dill  aiiyl)t)(ly  ever  i)re<liet  Bonaparte's  coiKjuest 
of  Italy  a  century  before  his  hirth?  Did  ever 
statesman  or  magician,  as  far  back  as  A.  D.  1G50, 
declare,  that,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  a  con- 
queror born  in  the  west  of  Italy  would  come  down 
from  the  north,  and  take  possession  of  Rome,  and 
that  his  name  would  be  Napoleon?  Yet  tliis  is  in 
kind  what  the  Hebrew  prophet  did.  The  ([ues- 
tion  is,  who  told  him  all  that  ?  How  did  he  alone, 
of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  find  out  the 
facts  so  exactly  and  so  minutely? 

2.  Isaiah  furthermore  describes  with  remarkable 
accuracy  the prrifnal  characttr  of  Ci/rus.  His  war- 
like sjiirit,  his  towering  ambition,  the  ra[)iility  of 
his  conquests,  the  equity  of  his  administration, 
and  his  heathen  religion,  are  all  declared,  after 
the  manner  of  prophecy.  "  Calling  a  ravenoiLS 
bird  from  the  East,"  is  the  prophet's  language. 
Prophetic  vision  deals  largely  in  symbols.  The 
eagle  is  its  favorite  s>Tnbol  of  an  aspiring,  war- 
like, swift  conqueror.  '"  Who  raised  up  the  rijht- 
eou^  man  from  the  East,"  is  the  prophetic  descrij> 
tion  of  Cyrus.  It  is  almost  the  exact  language 
ill  which  historians  describe  the  goTernment  of 
the  Persian  king.  "  The  just  one,"  he  is  often 
called.  "  Take  example  from  the  Persian,"  the 
tutors  of  Oriental  princes  used  to  say  to  their 
royal  pupils.  '*  I  have  girded  thee,  though  thou 
hast  not  known  me,"  are  the  words  which  proph- 
ecy puts  into  the  mouth  of  God  concerning  him. 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   TROPHECY.  299 

This  is  a  distinct  prediction  of  his  ignorance  of 
the  true  God. 

These  are  but  a  few  specimens  of  the  prophetic 
touches  of  which  there  are  many  more,  portraying 
with  an  artist's  skill  the  character  of  this  monarch. 
Imagine  now,  that,  in  addition  to  announcing  the 
name  and  the  birthplace  of  Napoleon  a  hundred 
and  thirty  years  before  he  was  born,  the  magician 
had .  described  him  as  an  eagle  in  his  conquests ; 
had  said  that  he  would  originate  a  superior  code  of 
jurisprudence,  —  the  "  Code  Napoleon  ;  "  and  tliat 
in  his  religion  he  would  be  a  Romanist.  Would 
pot  such  hints,  added  to  the  items  before  named, 
redouble  the  surprise  at  the  magician's  power? 
Would  not  men  ask  with  astonishment  who  he 
was,  where  he  came  from,  by  whose  authority  he 
spoke,  and  where  he  got  his  information?  Yet 
this  is  just  what  Isaiah  declares  of  the  great 
conqueror  of  the  East. 

3.  The  significance  of  the  prophecy  deepens, 
when  it  comes  to  describe  the  conquests  achieved  by 
Cyrus.  Passages  aboimd  of  which  these  are  spe- 
cimens :  "  He  gave  the  nations  before  him.  He 
made  him  ruler  over  kings.  He  made  them  as 
dust  to  his  sword,  and  as  driven  stubble  to  his 
bow.  The  isles  saw  it,  and  feared:  they  helped 
every  one  his  neighbor.  Every  one  said  to  his 
neighbor,  Be  of  good  courage.  I  will  subdue 
nations  under  him.  I  will  loose  the  loins  of 
kings." 


300  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

By  sulIi  rajiicl  glances,  the  half  of  which  I  ihi 
not  quote,  tlie  prophet  foretells  the  victories  ot" 
Cyrus  over  the  great  nations  of  the  East ;  the  con- 
sternation of  their  kings  ;  their  alliances  for  mu- 
tual defence ;  and  the  velocity  with  which  the 
Persian  legions  marched  from  victory  to  victory. 

Turn  we  now  to  history:  what  has  that  to  siiy? 
It  does  but  repeat  the  prophecy  in  describing  the 
facts  as  they  occurred.  Says  oiu?,  "lb'  had 
scarcely  gained  one  victory,  before  his  tumultuous 
forces  poured  down  on  other  battle-grounds. 
Scarcely  had  one  city  fallen,  before  he  stood  thun- 
dering at  the  gates  of  another.  Emi>ircs  were 
like  dust  before  him,  and  cities  like  chafl'."  That 
j)rophecy,  "/will  loo.se  the  loins  of  kings,"  liiid  its 
exact  fuHilment  in  the  consternation  of  Helshazzar 
at  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  when  the  Persian 
armies  were  on  the  march,  and  within  twenty-four 
liours  would  be  heard  tramping  the  streets  of  the 
doomed  capital. 

4.  The  prophecy  of  the  doinifaU  of  Bahijhn  dc- 
serves  disthwt  review.  The  j)rophetic  story  runs  in 
this  style :  *'  Evil  shall  come  upon  thee.  Thou 
shalt  not  know  from  whence  it  riseth.  Thou 
shalt  not  be  able  to  put  it  off.  Desolation  shall 
come  suddenly,  wliich  thou  shalt  not  know." 
Thus  is  expressed  the  sudden,  the  unexpected,  the 
irresistible,  and  the  improbable  calamity,  which  was 
commg  upon  that  haughty  city. 

Just  such,  in  fact,  was  its  conquest  l)v  Cyrus. 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  301 

That  event,  to  l)t'<,nn  with,  was  in  itself,  and  in 
any  form,  improbable.  Tlie  military  science  of 
tlio  age  pronounced  Babylon  imj)regnable  by  any 
methods  of  assault  or  sie^e  then  kno^vll.  So 
secure  did  king  and  people  feel  that  it  could  not 
be  taken  by  human  force  or  strategy,  that,  on  the 
vciy  night  of  its  capture  by  Cyrus,  they  were 
given  up  to  feasting  and  carousal  behind  their 
iiisurmountable  walls.  The  king  would  not  be- 
lieve the  rumor  of  the  enemy's  entrance,  even 
when  the  blood  of  his  people  was  flowing  in  the 
streets. 

Here,  again,  little  incidents  are  detailed,  which 
no  soothsayer  would  have  thought  of,  or  would 
have  dared  to  prediet  if  he  had  thought  of  them. 
"I  will  say  to  the  deep,  Be  dry;  I  will  dry  up 
thy  rivers.  I  will  open  before  him  the  two-leaved 
gates.  The  gates  shall  not  be  shut."  The  sig- 
nititance  of  this  language  will  appear  from  array- 
ing it  side  by  side  with  the  liistoric  facts.  Baby- 
lon was  a  eity  fifteen  miles  square.  It  was 
intersected  b}'  the  river  Euphrates,  as  London  is 
by  the  Thames,  and  Paris  b}'  the  Seine,  and 
Philadelphia  by  the  Schuylkill.  Solid  walls  sur- 
rounded it,  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high,  and 
broad  enough  on  the  top  for  four  chariots  to  be 
driven  abreast.  The  two  sections  again  were 
separated  by  walls  running  along  both  banks  of 
the  river.  Fronting  the  streets  on  either  side 
were   folding  gates  for  convenience  of  access  to 


302  STUDIES   OF   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 

the  stream  by  duy,  which  the  poHce  were  in- 
Btriicted  to  close  at  the  setting  of  the  siin. 

Cyrus  took  the  city  by  a  reiiuiikable  stratagem. 
In  military  invention  he  was  a  genius.  lie  strik- 
ingly resembhMl  our  own  Gen.  Sherman.  In  our 
late  civil  war  Gen.  Sherman  once  desi)atched 
a  force  to  cross  a  certain  river  at  a  given  i)oint. 
His  subordinates  soon  came  back,  saying  that 
there  was  no  bridw  tliero,  and  tliat  the  river 
was  not  f«>rdable  for  twenty  miles.  Said  the 
general,  witli  flasliing  eye,  "  Isn't  there  a  village 
within  five  mik's  of  there?  •"  Vcs,  sir."  —  "Well, 
go  back,  and  level  every  house  in  that  village 
to  the  ground,  and  with  the  timbers  huild  a  Inidge 
across  the  river."     An<l  they  did  it. 

Cyrus  was  the  Slierman  of  ancient  warfare. 
His  genius  invented  a  novel  way  of  marching  his 
army  into  impregnable  Bab3ion.  If  he  could  not 
march  over  the  walls,  he  would  contrive  to  march 
u)uhr.  He  did  it  by  a  very  simple  expedient, 
when  once  thought  of,  but  only  he  had  the  genius 
to  think  of  it.  He  dug  an  immense  canal  around 
the  walls,  and  turned  the  river  Euphrates  into  it. 
Then  he  marched  his  army  at  dead  of  night,  and 
in  dead  silence,  under  the  walls,  in  the  vacant  bed 
of  the  river.  But  tliis  brought  him  only  between 
the  two  other  immense  river-walls  inside.  How 
to  surmount  these  was  the  question.  The  indom- 
itable general  had  provided  scaling-ladders  for  the 
purpose.     But  the  God  of  Isaiah  had  done  better 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  303 

for  him  tlian  that.  Sure  enough,  he  found  those 
gates  which  let  the  citizens  down  to  the  river  in 
the  day-time  —  "  two-leaved,"  that  is,  fokUng  gates 
—  wide  open.  Like  other  drunken  policemen,  the 
custodians  of  Babylon  had  neglected  to  close  those 
gates. 

li"  my  young  readers  have  ever  seen  the  gates 
wliich  are  used  in  the  locks  of  a  canal,  like  those 
pf  the  Erie  Canal  at  Little  Falls,  they  will  have 
some  idea  of  the  structure  of  the  "  two-leaved 
gates  "  of  Babylon,  and  of  the  importance  to  an 
invading  army,  penned  up  in  the  channel  of  the 
.Eupln-ates,  of  finding  those  gates  open.  Thus 
Cyrus  found  them.  Even  the  palace-gates  were 
not  closed.  The  invader  got  near  enough  to  hear 
the  drunken  carousals  of  the  king  and  his  cour- 
tiers inside,  before  they  were  convinced  of  his  ap- 
proach. Do  you  not  now  see  a  new  meaning  in 
the  words  ?  "  I  will  dry  up  thy  rivers ;  I  will  open 
the  two-leaved  gates;  the  gates  shall  not  be  shut; 
I  will  loose  the  loins  of  kings." 

Herodotus,  the  ancient  historian  of  the  event, 
wi'iting  seventy  years  afterwards,  comments  upon  it 
in  this  manner :  "  If  the  besieged  had  been  aware 
of  the  designs  of  Cyrus,  they  might  have  destroyed 
his  troops.  They  had  only  to  secure  the  folding 
gates  leading  to  the  river,  and  to  have  manned 
the  embankments  on  either  side,  and  they  would 
have  enclosed  the  Persians  in  a  trap  from  which 
they  could  never  have  escaped.     As  it  hajypened^ 


o04  STUDIES  OF   THE  OLD   TEST^VMENT. 

they  were  tukun  liy  surprise;  iiml  such  is  the  ex- 
tent of  the  eity,  tliat  tliey  who  lived  in  the  extrem- 
ities were  nia<h'  prisoners  before  the  alarm  reached 
the  palace."  •  As  it  happened."  Yes,  it  hai>- 
pened:  hul.a  hundreil  and  more  years  before,  God 
had  said  by  his  prophet  how  it  should  happen. 
He  liad  said,  *•  /  will  open  the  twt>-leaved  gates." 
So  Cyrus  f«)unil  them  wide  open,  and  the  way 
clear  to  tlie  very  bancjuct-hall  of  tl^>  palace,  just 
as  Isaiah  had  said,  before  Cyrus  was  born,  that 
they  should  be. 

Now,  sup[)ose  that  about  the  time  of  the  Ameri- 
can Uevolution,  the  Hev.  Dr.  Witherspoon,  one  of 
the  signers  of  tiie  Declaration  of  Independence 
from  New  Jersey,  had  fallen  into  a  trance.  Sui> 
j>ose  that  in  that  trance  lie  had  foreseen  and  de- 
clared that  one  iShtnmiu  would  ari.se  in  distant 
times,  who  should  go  down  from  the  north,  and 
march  from  the  tccttt  to  the  seaboard  with  a  con- 
(juering  army,  scattering  deva.station  on  his  way ; 
that  his  march  would  be  like  the  flight  of  an  eagle  ; 
that  city  after  city  should  fall  before  him ;  that 
consternation  should  till  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  of  the  governors  of  States ;  and  that  by  that 
march  from  victory  to  \-ictory  he  should  aid  in 
putting  an  end  to  a  civil  war  which  threatened  the 
existence  of  the  nation,  —  su[)pose  that  in  descril> 
ing  Sherman's  march  from  Atlanta  to  Savannah, 
that  incident  of  his  building  a  bridge  and  crossing 
a   river   \\*ith   the  timbers  of  demolished   houses 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  305 

were  named  in  language  which  could  mean  noth- 
ing else,  —  would  not  the  men  of  our  time  have 
reason  to  think  I  )i .  Witherspoon,  in  his  trance,  had 
something  more  than  guesswork  in  his  prevision 
of  the  future? 

Yet  all  this  would  not  have  been  more  singular, 
more  improbable,  more  impossible  to  human  view, 
tiian  these  predictions  of  Isaiah  respecting  the 
jnanh  of  the  Persian  monarch  to  the  conquest  of 
Babylon.  The  tjuestion  therefore  returns,  laden 
with  redoubled  signiiicance.  Where  did  Isaiah  get 
his  information  ?  Who  told  him  that  Babylon,  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards,  would  be  shut 
oft'  from  the  Eui)hrates  In*  gates?  Who  told  him 
that  they  would  be  folding  gates?  How  did  he 
know  that  a  man  named  Cyrus  would  enter  the 
capital  in  the  bed  of  the  river,  and  on  that  partic- 
ular night,  contrary  to  usage  and  to  law,  would 
find  that  the  police  had  left  those  gates  open,  as  if 
on  purpose  to  let  the  invader  in?  In  short,  how 
came  he  to  ■\\Tite  himtori/  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
beforehand  ?  Did  any  other  historian  ever  ^vTite 
his  history  a  century  and  a  half  before  it  happened, 
instead  of  a  century  and  a  half  later,  and  be 
lucky  enough  to  have  it  all  happen  to  be  true, 
even  down  to  the  structure  and  the  opening  of  a 
gate  ? 

5.  One  other  feature  of  the  prophecy  and  the 
history  in  parallels  remains  to  be  noticed.  Isaiah 
explicitly  foretells  the  restoration  of  Judah  from 


30G  STUDIES   OF  THE  OLD   TEST^VMENT. 

captivitt/,  anil  the  rvf>uildi>if/  of  the  temple  at  JeruHa- 
lern,  fhr'>u>/h  the  afjcncy  of  Cyrus.  (loJ  declares 
!)>"  the  mouth  <»!'  thr  prophet  :  "  I  ^vill  direct  all  his 
ways ;  .  .  .  he  shall  let  go  iiiy  captives."  '•  Even 
saying  t^*  Jerusalem,  Be  Imilt  ;  ami  to  the  tem[)le, 
Thy  foundations  shall  he  laid."  ..."  He  shall  let 
go  my  captives,  not  for  j)rice  nor  reward."  "  Ye 
shall  he  redeemed  without  money."  .  .  .  "  Ye  shall 
not  go  out  with  luuste,  nor  go  by  llight." 

Here  we  fin<l  another  group  of  details  which  no 
uninspired  mind  could  have  guessed  at,  and  no 
soothsayer  would  have  dared  to  jiredict.  Every 
one  of  them  was  to  the  last  degree  improbahle. 
No  statesman  of  the  age  did  conjecture  them.  In 
the  prophet's  time,  there  were  no  captives  at  all  in 
P>al»ylon  from  Judah.  When  they  became  caj)- 
tives,  long  after,  it  was  improbable  that  they 
would  be  released  in  any  way  by  an  Oriental  des- 
pot, (lushed  with  victory.  They  were  very  valua- 
ble captives.  They  were  of  an  intelligent  race. 
Good  servants,  able-bodied  men  and  women  for 
household  use,  skilful  artisans,  honest  laborers, 
were  abundant  among  them.  Men  of  learning 
and  genius,  like  Daniel,  some  of  whom  were  de- 
servedly advanced  to  high  places  in  the  realm, 
were  Hebrews. 

Scarcely  any  other  race  has  the  world  ever 
found  so  serviceable  as  that  despised  stock  of 
Abraham.  At  the  very  time  when  the  Spanish  In- 
quisition was  persecuting  the  Jewish  [)eople  to  the 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   TROPHECY.  307 

deatli,  and  l)ut  one  country  in  Europe  was  a  safe 
asylum  for  tlieni,  many  of  the  most  eminent  schol- 
ars, scientists,  ]»n)fc'ssors,  musicians,  even  states- 
men at  the  head  of  empires,  were  Jews  in  secret, 
livin*^  unck'r  assumed  (rentile  names.  And  to  this 
day  they  are  a  race  everywhere  spoken  ap^ainst, 
but  everywliere  used.  Not  a  great  war  can  be 
.carried  on  in  Europe  without  the  permission  of 
a  .Ii'W.  Hismarck,  Andrassy,  Gortscliakoff,  all 
are  comi)elled  to  ask  leave  of  a  Jew  before  they 
dare  to  plunge  the  governments  they  represent 
into  the  vast  expenditures  caused  by  a  great  war. 
L(»rd  Beaconsfield  of  England  is  himself  a  Jew. 

So  in  the  Persian  economy:  never  was  a  more 
valuable  class  of  slaves  of  equal  number  held  by 
the  rights  of  war  than  those  held  under  command 
of  Cyrus  from  Judica.  It  was  the  last  thing  to  be 
expected  fi-oni  an  Eastern  despot,  that  he  should 
let  such  a  people  go  free ;  that  he  should  charge 
no  ransom  for  them  ;  that  they  should  not  be  com- 
pelled to  take  their  freedom  by  force  or  stratagem ; 
that  their  master  himself  should  restore  to  them 
their  plundered  treasures,  and  direct  the  rebuild- 
ing of  their  desolated  temple.  Never  was  a  pre- 
diction more  improbable  on  the  face  of  it. 

Yet  all  these  things  happened  just  as  Isaiah 
said  they  would.  The  truth  of  the  history  no 
infidel  presumes  to  question,  whatever  he  may 
think  of  the  prophecy.  Imagine  now,  that  a  hun- 
dred years  ago  tliere  had  been  no  Africans  in  the 


SOS  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TERTA^i^^^^^. 

Ann'iican  colonies  of  rrreat  Britain.  W-t  iniac^ine 
that  Dr.  Wilherspoon  iji  his  trance  had  dcchired 
tliat  the  march  of  one  Sherman,  the  man  of  eat,'le 
eye,  from  the  Cumberhand  to  the  seacoast,  sliouhl 
result  in  the  lil)eratii»n  of  millions  of  African 
slaves;  that  they  should  <^o  free  suddenly;  that 
not  a  dollar  would  be  paid  for  their  ransom  ;  that 
they  wouKl  not  force  their  libert}'  by  insurrection, 
nor  steal  it  l)vllij^ht;  tiiat  it  would 'be  given  to 
them  outright  by  the  proclamation  of  the  presi- 
dent ;  and  that  in  the  city  of  Washington  a  grand 
university  would  be  erected  for  their  training  as 
free  citizens  of  the  republic. 

The  men  of  that  age  might  well  have  lauHied 
at  ravings  so  improbaidc.  But  what  would  now 
be  the  verdict  of  the  men  of  our  age?  Should  we 
believe  that  the  story  was  all  guesswork  ?  Should 
we  not  believe  that  supernatural  prescience  was  in 
it  ?  Yet  just  such  in  kind  was  the  vision  of 
Isaiah,  —  no  less  specific  in  detail,  no  less  consistent 
in  the  continuity  of  the  storv,  and  no  less  true  to 
fact.  Not  the  half  of  the  coincidences  between 
the  prophecy  and  the  history  are  given  here.  The 
prophecy  now  all  reads  like  history.  The  facts  of 
the  one  tally  exactly  with  the  prescience  of  the 
other. 

The  question  therefore  returns  again,  —  IJow 
did  Isaiah  get  his  knowledge  of  coming  events? 
"Who  told  him  facts  a  hundred  and  more  years 
before  the  wisest  statesman  of  the  age  had  once 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  309 

thought  of  them  as  conjectures  ?  Did  any  other 
man,  not  inspired  of  God,  ever  coin  history  thus 
out  of  guesswork?  Did  ever  romance  fall  true 
like  this?  Sir  Walter  Scott  wrote  historical  ro- 
mances, lias  "Ivanhoe"  or  "Qucntin  Durward" 
ever  come  true?  Toss  up  a  font  ci  alphabetic 
type  at  random  in  the  air,  and  will  they  come 
down  all  set  and  ready  for  the  press  iii  tlie  form  of 
the  "  Arabian  Nights"?  Yet  this  is,  in  substance, 
what  infidelity  asks  us  to  believe,  when  it  denies 
the  gift  of  divine  inspiration  to  the  Hebrew 
prophets.  , 

Such,  then,  is  the  argument  from  fulfilled  proijh- 
ecy  for  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
career  of  Cyrus  is  but  a  single  sample.  Other 
cases  of  the  same  kind  swell  the  proof  to  volumes. 
The  present  condition  <tf  Babylon;  the  destruc- 
tion of  Moab ;  the  fall  of  Tyre ;  the  conquest  of 
Egypt ;  the  doom  of  Damascus  ;  the  desolation 
of  Idunuua ;  the  sack  of  Jerusalem ;  the  life,  death, 
and  bui'ial  of  Christ,  —  are  events  which  belong 
to  the  same  class.  They  all  abound  with  the  same 
sort  of  coincidence  between  the  prophecy  and  the 
history.  The  coincidence  extends  to  minute  de- 
tails. •  It  is  sustained  without  a  break  through 
long-continued  narrative,  covering  years  —  yes, 
centiu'ies,  —  and  involving  the  destiny  of  individu- 
als with  the  fate  of  nations  and  of  empires. 

Such  intricate  and  involved  prevision  no  human 
mind  could  have  painted  without  a  break  in  the 


310  STUD  FES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

truthfulness  of  the  storv,  unless  inspired  by  an 
omniscient  (rod.  Any  other  solution  of  the  mys- 
tery throws  upon  us  a  weight  of  credulity  a  liun- 
dred-fold  greater  than  that  of  faith  in  the  "Ara- 
l)iaii  Xigiits  "  as  authentic  history.  For  the  most 
part  intidelity  feels  this,  and  very  shrewdly  de- 
cides to  let  the  fulfdled  prophecies  of  the  Bible 
alone.  There  is  no  other  argument  for  the  truth 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  which  infidels  so  gen- 
erally agree  to  ujnure  as  this. 

A  single  admonition  is  suggested  by  this  rapid 
review.  It  is.  that  young  minds  should  guard 
with  sprcial  cure  at/ainyf  the  hftjinnitujn  <>f  distrust 
in  the  divine  origin  of  the  Bilde.  Any  young  man 
can  be  an  infidel  if  he  wills  to  be  one.  The  Kcv. 
Dr.  Emmons  was  once  aj)pealed  to  by  a  saucy  dis- 
believer in  immortality,  who  said,  "  Show  us  the 
evidence  of  this  thing  you  call  a  soul :  what  does 
it  look  like  ?  "  He  replied,  turning  on  his  heel, 
"  No :  I  can't  prove  a  soul  to  a  man  who  hasn't 
any." 

So  we  cannot  prove  the  divinity  of  the  Bible  to 
one  who  has  no  will  to  see  it.  But  in  a  Christian 
land  no  man  can  deny  it  with  an  unsullied  con- 
science. The  evidence  is  clear  ;  it  is  direct ;  it  is 
abundant.  Juries  send  men  to  the  scaffold  on  evi- 
dence not  the  half  of  it.  No  man  can  resist  it 
without  guilt.  No  mind  can  sink  so  low,  without 
approaching  near  to  that  state  of  matured  deprav- 
ity in  which   it   calls   evil  good,  and  good  evil; 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  311 

trutli  falseliood,  and  falsehood  truth  :  in  which  it 
believes  absurdities,  and  trusts  in  contradictions, 
just  because  it  stubbornly  ivills  to  do  so. 

Not  the  least  among  the  surprises  of  the  day 
of  judgment  will  be  the  re-discovery  of  lost  truths 
through  the  resurrection  of  rejected  evidence. 
Proofs  which  once  men  saw  as  m  sunlight,  but 
closed  their  eyes  upon,  will  be  again  written  in 
ilaming  lire.  Eternity  will  be  ablaze  with  them. 
These  ancient  Hebrew  seers  will  be  there,  to  bear 
witness  to  the  evidence  they  left  on  record  of  the 
inspiration  of  God's  word.  "  Fool  that  I  was," 
will  then  be  the  verdict  of  many  a  lost  being,  — 
' "  fool  that  I  was,  not  to  believe  what  I  knew  to  be 
true!" 

The  near  approach  of  death  sometimes  antici- 
pates the  surprises  of  that  day.  Ethan  Allen  of 
Vermont,  of  Revolutionary  fame  as  the  leader  of 
the  "  Green  ^Mountain  Boys,"  was  an  infidel.  His 
wife  was  a  devoted  Christian.  When  he  was  on 
his  death-bed  he  was  asked,  "■  Whose  faith  do  you 
wish  your  children  to  adopt,  yours  or  their  moth- 
er's?"—  "Their  mother's,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 

A  similar  incident  occurred  in  the  last  hours  of 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Paulus,  professor  of  biblical 
literature  at  Heidelberg.  He  was  substantially 
an  atheist.  He  denied  every  thing  supernatural, 
even  to  the  denial  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
When  his  fatal  illness  began,  he  declared  that  he 
was  about  to  die,  and  that  that  would  be  the  end 


312  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

of  him.  Ill  this  cheerk'ss  faith  he  eahuly  awaited 
the  clusing  scene.  When  it  eanie,  he  Uiy  in  a 
speechless  coma  for  some  hours.  It  was  siii>posed 
that  he  wouM  never  speak  again.  But  at  hist  he 
suddenly  opened  his  eyes,  raised  them  to  the  ceil- 
ing, as  if  he  saw  something  invisible  to  other  than 
dying  sight,  and  starting  to  raise  himself  in  ]>cd  ho 
exclaimed,  •*  There  in  another  life  !  "  then  fell  back 
a  cori)se.  What  an  appalling  discover}'  to  make 
at  the  last  moment  of  an  abused  and  lost  proba- 
tion !  —  that  a  man's  lifelong  faith,  on  which  he  has 
risked  eternity,  has  been  a  lie,  and  that  he  has 
nothing  now  but  the  ruin  of  a  soul  to  carry  into 
another  life.  Let  youthful  readers  take  warning. 
Watch  with  j)rayer  the  first  wavering  beginning 
of  distrust  in  the  word  of  (Jod. 

It  in  the  word  of  (iod.  True  or  false,  it  is 
inspired  by  an  omniscient  mind.  If  false,  it  is  a 
fraud  so  stupendous  that  mortal  man  could  never 
have  originated  it.  The  grandeur  of  the  imposture 
would  be  as  jniraculoits  as  its  truth.  A  Living  writer 
has  declared  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  God, 
as  he  claimed  to  be,  or  he  was  the  Devil.  With 
unutterable  reverence  be  the  h^-pothesis  tolerated 
for  the  moment.  For  it  is  between  such  extremes 
of  best  and  worst  that  we  have  to  choose  in  ac- 
cepting or  rejecting  the  religion  of  the  Bible. 
There  is  no  middle  ground  on  which  a  reasonable 
man  can  stand,  knowing  nothing,  believing  noth- 
ing, caring  nothing.     Tliis  book  is  true,  or  it  is  a 


THE   FULFILMENT   OF   PROPHECY.  313 

lie  so  stupendous  that  human  thought  never  con- 
ceived it ;  and  it  comes  to  us  sustained  by  evi- 
dences which  to  the  common-sense  of  men  must 
prove  it  to  be  the  work  of  God.  Which  is  the 
more  probable  ?  On  which  belief  is  it  sal'er  to  risk 
eternity  ? 


CHRIST  TIIE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL 

Tii()r(;iiT. 

I  saw  iu  tlio  night  visions,  and,  behold,  one  liko  the  Son  of 
man  caino  with  tho  chnids  of  heaven,  and  came  to  the  Ancient 
of  (hiys,  and  fhey  brought  hiiu  ni-ar  bt-fore  him.  And  tliero  waa 
given  liiin  tlominion,  and  ghiry,  and  a  kingihnn,  that  all  i>eopIe, 
nations,  and  languages,  shonhl  sene  him:  his  dominion  is  an 
everlasting  doniinion  wliirh  shall  not  piuss  away,  and  his  king- 
dom that  which  shall  not  Im  destroyed.  —  Da-n.  vii.  13,  14. 

ONE  of  tlie  first  signs  by  which  a  traveller  in 
Italy  observes  that  he  is  approaching  the 
capital  of  the  kingdom,  is  that  all  the  guide- 
boards  bear  its  name.  From  whatever  quarter 
of  the  compass  he  journeys,  and  ])y  whatever 
highway,  he  sees  at  all  corners  the  outstretched 
finger,  and  the  words,  "  To  Rome,"  The  people 
have  a  proverb  that  "■  all  roads  lead  to  Rome." 

Similar  to  this  network  of  highways  is  the  in- 
ternal structure  of  the  Bible.  That,  too,  is  covered 
over  by  lines  of  suggestion,  which  all  point  one 
way.  They  converge  to  one  centre,  and  that 
centre  is  Christ.  A  sample  of  this  is  found  in 
the  text  before  us. 

I.  Let  us  first  observe  some  of  the  details  of 

314 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  315 

biblical  truth  in  wliich  this  centring  of  revelation 
in  Clirist  is  seen. 

The  first  token  of  it  which  the  reader  of  the 
Bible  discovers  is  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of 
the  Messiah.  From  afar,  back  at  the  epoch  of  the 
fall,  down  to  the  last  of  the  prophetic  ages,  we 
iind  the  promise  of  the  coming  of  a  mysterious 
being,  of  miraculous  birth  and  strange  destiny. 
Hit*  life  is  to  involve  strange  contradictions.  He 
is  to  retrieve,  in  some  mysterious  way,  the  disaster 
of  the  fall.  He  is  to  engage  in  victorious  conflict 
with  the  powers  of  darkness,  and  set  men  free 
from  their  dominion.  Who  he  is,  what  he  is, 
whence  he  is  to  come,  what  is  to  be  his  rank,  what 
he  is  to  do,  how  lie  is  to  live  and  how  to  die,  are 
at  first  only  hinted  at.  The  seed  of  the  woman 
shall  bruise  the  head  of  the  serpent.  Then  with 
increasing  clearness  comes  the  promise  to  Abra- 
ham. Then  follow  the  types  of  the  Mosaic  ritual, 
pointing  to  a  distant  future,  and  hinting  at  an 
atoning  tragedy.  In  the  Psalms  the  great  ad- 
vent grows  more  resplendent :  "  Lo,  I  come  :  in 
the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me." 
Finally  the  prophets  pour  forth  a  low  and  tender 
wail,  as  if  chanting  a  funeral  dirge  over  the  de- 
spised and  rejected  One,  the  Man  of  sorrows; 
him  whose  visage  was  marred;  in  whom  is  no 
beauty ;  who  should  bear  griefs  not  his  own,  and 
suffer  stripes  for  others'  healing.  Then  suddenly 
the   scene   changes,   and    the   chorus   swells   and 


310  STUDIES   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

deepens  into  exulting  and  triumphal  song  of 
the  Wonderful,  the  Counsellor,  the  Prince  of 
peace,  the  miglity  God,  the  everlasting  F'ather. 
To  a  soul  inquiring  after  God,  the  Old  Tes- 
tament seems  to  fill  the  aii*  with  tlicsc  niystcrit)us 
responses. 

A  German  astronomer,  not  long  ago,  called  my 
attention  to  the  magnificent  distances  and  the 
sublime  evolutions  of  the  lieavenly  Ijodies.  Said 
he,  ''  Up  there  in  the  December  skies,  I  can  see 
something  that  seems  to  me  worthy  of  an  almighty 
God.  But  when  I  come  back  from  the  stars  to 
your  Old-Testament  story  about  fire  coming  doNvn 
from  the  sky  to  burn  up  the  fragments  of  a 
slaughtered  lamb,  it  seems  to  me  very  petty  in 
the  contrast.  I  cannot  help  asking  myself, '  What 
can  the  God  of  the  sidereal  universe  have  to  do 
with  that?'"  True,  it  ««  very  petty  till  we  dis- 
cover in  the  bleeding  laml),  on  the  altars  of  Judaia, 
the  symbol  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain  fi'om  the 
foundation  of  the  w^orld.  It  is  beneath  the  notice 
of  the  God  of  the  stars,  until  we  discern  in  the 
blood  of  the  sacrifice  a  type  of  the  blood  which 
was  foreordained  for  the  remission  of  sin  before 
one  star  glistened  in  the  diadem  of  night. 

Take  Christ  out  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
student  of  astronomy  may  well  scorn  and  scout 
the  whole  story.  Put  back  Christ  into  its  pages, 
and  they  glow  with  a  magnificence  which  the 
heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain.     Petty,  is  it? 


CHRIST   THE  CENTRE   OF   BHJLICAL   THOUGHT.  317 

That  very  homeliness  of  its  details  is  the  measure 
of  God's  condescension.  Thus  he  has  come  down 
to  the  slow  and  patient  training  of  a  rude  people 
in  a  iiider  age.  Is  the  prattle  of  the  nursery 
degrading  to  the  young  mother  who  fondly  studies 
its  meaning?  "What  else  marks  the  love  of  a 
mother  like  it?  But  for  just  such  pcttuiess,  what 
would  the  world  have  ever  known  of  Homer  and 
Plato?  The  Old  Testament  is  simply  the  story 
of  the  moral  nursery  of  the  race.  In  this  one 
fact  lies  the  whole  volume  of  reply  to  the  carpings 
of  infidelity. 

.  The  second  feature  of  the  Scriptures  which 
exalts  Christ  as  their  central  thought,  is  the  Nctv- 
Ti')<tament  doctrine  of  his  sufferings  and  death. 
Here,  agani,  we  find  the  same  convergence  of  radii 
to  a  centre.  Let  a  pliilosopliical  critic,  unac- 
quainted with  Christian  history,  read  the  New 
Testament  for  the  first  time,  and  he  cannot  fail 
to  see  that  the  one  central  character  of  the  whole 
is  Christ.  The  central  fact  is  the  crucifixion. 
The  locality  of  most  intense  significance  is  Cal- 
vary. The  hero  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost "  is  not  so 
clearly  defined  as  is  the  centring  of  the  New- 
"Testament  thought  in  the  person  of  Christ,  and 
in  his  tragic  death.  As  patriarch  and  prophets 
looked  forward,  so  evangelists  and  apostles  look 
backward,  to  this  one  mysterious  person,  and  pon- 
der the  unfathomable  significance  of  his  dying 
words.     Here  is  an  event  in  the  world's  liistory, 


318  STUDIES  OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

which,  in  the  reach  of  its  meaning,  is  hi}:,Miei 
than  heaven  and  deeper  than  hell.  Aronnd  it 
the  New  Testament  is  bnilt.  We  do  not  lind  five, 
three,  two,  events,  from  which  to  select  its  natnral 
centre.  There  is  but  one.  Every  other  bends 
to  that  as  a  tributary.  Take  that  out  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  significance  of  it  is  destroyed 
as  hopelessly  as  that  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost " 
woidd  be  if  you  eliminate  the  person  of  Satan. 

A  quality  like  that  which  science  calls  "aerial 
perspective"  pervades  the  book,  b}'  which  the 
light  and  shade  of  all  other  truths  are  magnified 
or  reduced  by  their  nearness  or  distance  of  rela- 
tion to  this  one,  —  that  a  man  whom  other  men 
unch'rstood  to  make  himself  the  etjual  of  God 
died  an  ignominious  death  on  the  cross.  Even 
the  letter  of  the  volume  hints  at  this.  St.  Mat- 
thew begins  with,  "The  book  of  the  generation 
of  Jesus  Christ;  and  St.  John  ends  the  vision 
of  the  ReveLation  with,  "  The  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  be  with  you."  The  one  image  which 
fills  up  the  whole  interval  between  is  Jesus 
Chiist.  A  hungering,  thirsting,  suffering,  pray- 
ing, dying,  buried,  rising,  ascending,  interceding, 
reigning,  exultant,  and  triumi)haut  Redeemer,  is 
the  one  burden  of  the  story. 

This  concentration  of  biblical  thought  in  the 
person  of  Christ  is  intensified  further  by  the  bib- 
lical doctrine  of  the  deity  of  Christ.  ^Vbout  this 
the  Bible  does  not  philosophize.     It  is  presented 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  319 

as  a  simple  fact  in  the  biblical  disclosure  of 
Godhead.  The  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God.  Jle  is  the  brightness  of  tlie 
Father's  glory,  and  the  express  image  of  his  per- 
son. With  sucli  declarations  the  fact  is  left  in 
its  mysterious  and  sublime  simplicity. 

Men  often  ask  us  why  we  make  so  much  of 
Christ  in  our  religious  life.  Why  magnify  so 
loftily  the  name  of  Jesus?  Was  he  not  a  Naza- 
rene?  Was  he  not  born  of  a  woman?  Was  he 
not  the  son  of  Joseph  ?  Did  not  a  carpenter  claim 
his  filial  service?  A  precocious  child^  a  wise  man, 
a  teacher,  an  example,  a  good  man,  a  martyr,  a 
man  of  mysterious  command  of  supernatural 
forces ;  all  that  is  good  and  great  and  amiable  and 
reverend,  if  you  please :  still,  was  he  not  a  babe 
in  Bethlehem?  Was  he  not  swathed  in  a  man- 
ger? Did  he  not  hunger?  Did  he  not  thirst? 
Did  he  not  slumber  ?  Did  he  not  weep  ?  Did  he 
not  confess  his  ignorance  ?  Did  he  not  die  ?  Did 
not  the  grave  claim  him  as  its  victim?  Believe 
him,  then,  pity  him,  revere  him,  trust  him,  love 
him,  obey  him,  stand  in  awe  before  the  mystery 
of  his  being,  if  you  will ;  but  why  worship  him  ? 
Why  pray  to  him  ?  Why  make  so  much  of  him 
as  to  exalt  him  to  the  ineffable  and  adorable  God- 
head  ?  Why  turn  away  from  the  forests  and  the 
oceans'  and  the  heavens,  which  speak  so  grandly 
of  Him  who  made  them,  to  seek  your  God  in  .a 
dying  man  ? 


r 


320  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^UIENT. 

Our  answer  is  prompt  and  plain.  It  is,  that  in 
this  Man  of  sorrows,  tliis  despised,  rejected,  suffer- 
ing, dying  One,  we  discern  a  disclosure  of  God 
of  which  Nature,  in  her  most  magnificent  attire, 
can  give  us  not  a  hint  or  conjecture.  We  go  to 
Nature  with  souls  burdened  by  the  consciousness 
of  sin,  and  we  get  nothing  from  her  that  speaks 
to  our  condition.  Both  the  silence  and  the  speech 
of  Nature  send  us  away  from  her  in  despair. 

What  says  the  speech  of  Nature  ?  We  ask  her 
to  give  peace  to  our  troubled  conscience ;  and  she 
tells  us  how  old  the  mountains  are,  and  where  are 
the  birthplaces  of  the  rivers  and  the  si)rings  of  the 
sea.  We  entreat  her  to  tell  us  how  we  cau  obtain 
forgiveness;  and  she  discourses  proudly  to  us  of 
gigantic  flora  and  fauna,  the  buried  races  before 
man  was.  We  press  the  question,  "  How  can 
man  be  just  with  God?"  and  she  shows  us  exult- 
ingly  the  bones  of  the  mastodon,  and  guesses 
■wisely  at  the  skeleton  of  the  ichthyosaurus.  We 
beg  to  be  taught  what  we  must  do  to  be  saved ; 
and  she  turns  to  her  telescope,  and  measures  for 
us  exactly  the  mountains  of  the  moon,  and  tells 
us  that  its  diameter  is  two  thousand  one  hundred 
and  sixty  miles.  On  bended  knees  we  beseech 
of  her  to  reveal  to  us  who  shall  deliver  us  from 
the  body  of  this  death ;  and  she  puts  a  microscope 
into  our  hands,  and  asks  us  to  count  the  teeming 
population  of  an  oak-leaf,  and  to  observe  what  a 
tempestuous  ocean  a  drop  of  water  is.     We  re- 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  321 

spond,  "•  Not  that,  not  that ;  but  tell  us,  oh,  tell 
us,  before  it  is  too  late,  how  we  shall  escape  the 
damnation  of  hell ! "  And  she  proceeds  with 
arithmetical  precision  to  count  for  us  the  four 
thousand  facets  in  the  eyes  of  a  house-fly- 
Alas  !  what  shall  we  do  ?  We  turn  away  in 
despair:  we  go  mourning  many  days  for  the  wis- 
dom that  shall  make  us  wise  unto  salvation.  The 
depth  saith,  "  It  is  not  with  me."  The  sea  saith, 
'*•  It  is  not  in  me." 

"  It  cannot  be  gotten  for  gold  ;  neither  shall  sil- 
ver be  weighed  for  the  price  thereof.  The  gold 
«f  Ophir,  the  precious  onyx,  the  sajiphire,  the 
crystal,  cannot  equal  it.  No  mention  shall  be 
made  of  coral  or  of  pearls.  The  price  of  it  is 
above  rubies.  Whence,  then,  cometh  it?  and 
where  is  the  place  of  it?"  We  have  heard  poets 
say  that 

"Nature 
Never  did  desert  the  child  that  loved  her." 

But  we  do  not  find  it  so.  We  find  that  Nature 
does  desert  one  who  inquires  of  her  after  a  God 
who  can  purify  from  guilt.  To  every  such  inquiry 
we  find  her  dumb. 

When  we  get  nothing  from  her  speech,  we  inter- 
rogate her  silence ;  and  that  we  find  more  pitiless 
than  the  grave.  The  silence  of  the  rocks,  and 
the  silence  of  the  waters,  and  the  silence  of  the 
skies,  all  speak  to  us  of  Law.     They  proclaim,  as 


322  STTTDreS   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

the  secret  polity  f»f  God\s  govcriiiiK'iit,  imimita- 
ble,  merciless,  tlainniug  Law.  Evi-iy  hint  tliat  the 
silence  f)f  Nature  gives  to  a  scorpion  conscience  is 
charged  and  surcharged  with  irreversible  and  end- 
less doom.  Interjjreted  by  Nature's  silence,  tlie 
worm  dieth  imt.  We  see,  that,  if  we  suffer  s]ii|>- 
wreck,  the  waters  drown  us.  If  we  are  hemmed 
in  by  forest  fires,  the  llames  burn  us.  If  we  seek 
shelter  under  a  tree  from  the  storras  of  heaven, 
the  lightning  strikes  us.  If  we  taste  a  poisonous 
beiTy  in  the  woods,  disease  consumes  us.  If  we 
fall  asleep  amid  the  fumes  of  charcoal,  we  never 
wake  again.  If  wt*  give  ourselves  to  strong  drink, 
hell  gapes  ujKm  us  before  the  time.  Above, 
around,  below,  within  us,  we  find  Law,  Law.  Law, 
—  nothing  but  Law.  Our  very  being  is  an  incar- 
nate Law.  We  find  no  liint  of  such  a  thing  as 
escape  from  the  vengeance  of  an  outraged  Law. 
When  did  ever  a  law  of  nature  lift  a  foot,  or  tread 
more  lightly,  because  a  praying  man  lay  prostrate 
under  it?  Talk  to  Law  of  your  sins,  ask  her 
how  you  can  be  forgiven,  and  she  laughs  at  your 
calamity,  she  mocks  when  your  fear  comes.  Law, 
therefore,  suggests  an  eternal  retribution  for  eter- 
nal sin.  Why  not  ?  If  we  are  crushed  and  man- 
gled under  the  avenging  tread  of  Law  in  tliis 
world,  why  not  in  another  ?     Who  can  tell  us  ? 

Therefore  it  is  that  we  turn  in  our  emergency 
to  seek  for  some  other  disclosure  of  God,  if  haply 
we  may  find  it.     Why  may  we  not  believe  that 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BTRLICAL   THOUGHT.  323 

we  have  found  it  in  this  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ  ?  Here  we  find  a  God  wlio  can  pardon  sin. 
Herein  is  the  love  we  need,  that,  while  we  were 
yet  sinners,  Christ  died,  and  died  for  us.  The 
mystery  of  the  God-man,  the  man-God,  does  not 
balk  us.  Sin  is  itself  an  anomaly  in  the  moral 
universe.  Tiie  forgiveness  of  sin  is  an  anomaly 
at  which  angelic  wisdom  may  well  stand  aghast. 
At  the  spectacle  of  sin  unpunished,  thoughtful 
intelligence,  the  universe  through,  may  well  trem- 
ble for  the  stability  of  God's  throne.  Till  now, 
so  far  as  we  know,  it  has  been  unheard  of  in  the 
history  of  the  intelligent  creation.  We  should 
expect  the  method  of  forgiveness  to  be  full  of 
mystery  inexi)licable  to  finite  wisdom.  The  mys- 
tery of  Christ  is  just  like  God,  in  such  an  anomaly 
of  Ills  government.  Enough  for  us  is  it  that  it 
meets  our  case.  Here  God  does  speak  to  our 
condition.  He  comes  down  to  a  level  wdth  us. 
He  takes  our  polluted  hand  within  his  own.  He 
offers  to  create  in  us  a  new  heart.  What  more 
can  we  ask  for?  We  do  not  haggle  about  the 
life-boat  that  comes  to  take  us  from  a  burning 
wreck  because  we  cannot  make  a  life-boat.  We 
do  not  spui'n  the  hand  of  the  fireman  who  lifts  us 
from  a  blazmg  window  because  we  do  not  see 
how  he  got  there.  Sufl&ce  it  that  we  can  be 
saved.  We  believe,  we  trust,  we  rejoice  with  joy 
unspeakable.  Therefore  it  is  that  this  thought 
of    God  in   Christ  has   become   so    dear   to    his 


324  STUDIES    OF    TIIK   OLD   TEST.VMENT. 

Chnrth.  Tlierefore  it  is,  that,  for  abuost  a  thou- 
sand years,  the  Chiirch  of  every  name,  aud  in 
many  lands,  lias  been  singmg  the  refrain  of  her 
St.  IJernard, — 

'•  O  Jfsus.  Kiny  most  woiulcrfuJ! 
Thou  conqueror  renowned! 
Thou  sweetness  most  ineffable, 
In  whom  all  joys  are  found!" 

And  therefore  it  is  that  the  Churcli  of  to-<lay 
sends  back  her  response  to  the  ages,  without  one 
jot  or  tittle  of  abatement  from  the  ancient  faith, — 

"  3fv  fiiith  lfH)ks  up  to  thee, 
Thou  Lamb  of  Calvary." 

The  centring  of  biblical  truth  in  the  person 
of  Christ  receives  another,  and,  if  possible,  a 
grander  illustration,  in  the  hihlical  doctrine  of 
CJirii<t'ii  vii'diaturial  niju.  'J'his  is  the  special 
teaching  t)f  the  text  before  us.  It  is  but  a  hint 
of  a  more  resplendent  revelation,  which  runs 
through  the  whole  history  of  redemption.  This 
'•  Son  of  man  "  in  the  night  visions  of  the  prophet 
is  he  to  whom  "  all  power  is  given  in  heaven  and 
(in  earth.  God  has  highly  exalted  him.  At  Ids 
name  every  knee  shall  bow,  of  things  in  heaven, 
and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth." 

We  are  not  alone,  then,  in  the  interest  we  feel 
in  Christ.  He  is  the  centre  of  thought  also  to  the 
whole  universe  of  mind.  His  is  the  empire  of  the 
universe.     Svrapathy  with  his  work  here  is  felt  in 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE  OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  325 

distant  worlds.  Piinci[>alities  and  powers  in  heav- 
enly places  stand  in  awe-struck  study  around  this 
one  spot  where  the  mystery  of  redemption  is  un- 
folding. A  strange  gravitation  draws  them  to 
this  one  globe  above  all  others  in  inhabrted  space. 
Such  is  the  impression  which  the  biblical  glimpses 
of  other  worlds  leave  upon  us.  This  is  known  to 
the  universe  as  the  *•  world  of  the  cross."  Lost 
spirits  know  it  as  the  "world  of  the  cross."  Min- 
istering angels  know  it  as  the  ''world  of  the 
cross."  We  do  not  know  that  another  such  world 
exists  within  the  bounds  of  creation.  If  demoni- 
acal  alliances  are  formed  against  it,  to  clutch  it 
fi'om  the  hands  of  its  Redeemer,  from  holy  worlds 
come  spiritual  re-enforcements  in  innumerable  bat- 
talions to  its  rescue.  Dr.  Chalmers  did  no  vio- 
lence to  the  scriptural  disclosures  of  the  reign 
of  Christ,  when  he  represented  the  worlds  of  in- 
visible being  as  pulsating  and  growing  tremulous 
in  s}nnpathy  with  the  conflicts  of  the  cross.  In 
the  biblical  story  of  redemi^tion  our  atmosphere 
seems  populous  with  spu'itual  legions,  marching 
and  countermarching  at  the  bidding  of  the  Cap- 
tain of  our  salvation. 

My  space  will  not  permit  me  to  do  more  than  to 
mention  the  fact  that  the  concentration  of  revealed 
truth  in  the  person  of  Christ  is  further  indicated 
by  the  biblical  doctrine  of  the  eternal  union  of  our 
Lord  ivith  the  redeemed  in  heaven. 

II.  Let  us  now  observe  some  of  the   practical 


326  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

bearings  of  this  pre-eminence  of  Christ's  person 
and  work  upon  Christian  fiiith  and  character. 

1.  It  has  ;in  obvious  bearing  upon  the  propor- 
tion and  perxpective  of  truth  in  a  Chrintians 
hi'lief.  A 'religious  creed  may  be  made  up  of 
trutlis,  and  yet  not  be  truthful.  It  may  be  false 
in  its  })roportions.  It  may  be  delusive  in  its  per- 
si)eilive.  Some  truths  may  be  inflated,  other 
truths  may  be  serimi)ed.  The  resqjtant  creed 
may  be  a  monstrosity  of  distortion.  Yet,  taking 
it  in  pieces,  doctrine  by  doctrine,  it  may  be  that 
not  a  falsehood  is  affirmed,  and  not  a  truth  is 
denied.  In  the  old  punishment  by  torture,  life 
was  often  racked  out  of  the  body  by  the  mere 
distortion  of  thews  and  sinews,  jet  not  a  bone 
was  broken.  So  a  system  of  Christian  faith,  made 
up  of  Christian  elements  alone,  may  be  paralyzed 
as  a  practical  working-power  by  the  sheer  loss  of 
svnnnetrv,  without  denying  one  truth,  or  affirm- 
ing  one  falsehood. 

This  tendency  to  dislocation  in  religious  belief 
finds  its  most  cff'ectual  corrective  in  the  view  we 
have  just  considered.  The  first  thing  necessary 
to  the  construction  of  a  geometric  circle  is  to  fix 
its  centre.  So  iu  the  adjustment  of  a  biblical 
faith,  truthfulness  of  proportion  depends  on  pos- 
session of  the  right  centre.  That  is  presump- 
tively the  most  trutliful  faith,  therefore,  which 
works  into  the  experience  of  the  believer  most 
effectually  the  reality  of  the  person  and  the  work 


CHRIST   TETE   CENTRE  OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  327 

of  Christ.  The  biblical  perspective  exalts  Christ. 
So  should  the  thought  of  a  crucified  Saviour  be 
the  resrnant  thought  in  all  Christian  belief. 

Christ  thus  enthroned  in  the  believer's  faith  has 
a  marvellous  power  to  rectify  speculative  vagaries. 
It  is  diificult  for  such  a  believer  to  go  wrong  in 
other  elements  of  his  fiiith.  He  is  not  easily 
made  a  slave  of  crotchets.  This  smgle  conception 
of  God  ill  Christ  is  charged  with  a  centripetal 
majinetisni  which  holds  in  obedient  circuit  around 
it  all  other  truths,  as  the  sun  holds  the  planets. 
Let  this  one  truth  become  regnant  in  the  soul, 
and  all  other  truths  fall  into  rank  around  it,  and 
turn  inward  towards  it,  as  metallic  particles  do 
when  a  magnet  approaches  them.  The  cross,  the 
cross,  the  cross,  —  this  is  the  l)urden  of  inspired 
■wisdom,  this  is  the  creative  and  corrective  force 
in  all  Christian  theory  of  doctrine. 

2.  The  centring  of  truth  in  the  person  of 
Christ  should,  furthermore,  impart  to  Christian 
experience  a  profound  sense  of  the  reality  of  God 
as  a  personal  friend.  God  in  Christ  is  brought 
home  to  the  believer  in  these  two  aspects  of  his 
being,  —  as  a  living  person,  and  as  a  present  friend. 
In  redemption  we  have  to  do,  not  so  much  with 
a  device  of  government,  as  with  a  personal  Re- 
deemer. Divines  talk  much  of  the  plan  of  salva- 
tion. Believers  speak  rather  of  the  living  One, 
the  chief  among  ten  thousand.  The  object  of 
redeeming   love   is   not   man,  but  men ;   not  the 


328  STUDIES   OF   THE   OLD   TEST^V^IKNT. 

race,  but  the  man,  the  woman,  the  ihild.  Tlio 
race,  as  distinct  from  the  individual  souls  who 
compose  the  race,  is  a  fiction  of  the  schools.  An 
intense  personality  characterizes  the  whole  trans- 
action by  wliich  the  sinner  becomes  a  child  of 
God.  A  personal  Redeemer  reaches  forth,  and 
takes  to  liiinself  the  personal  believer. 

Our  hynniolorry  often  penetrates  our  theology 
more  profoundly  than  our  creeds  cau-  Hence  it 
is  that  our  choieest  iiynins  of  praise,  those  which 
the  Church  seizes  upon  by  intuition,  and  learns 
(juickly  by  lieart,  are  many  of  them  founded  on 
this  sense  of  the  personal  possession  of  a  personal 
Saviour. 

3.  Another  effect  of  the  pre-eminence  of  Christ 
in  Christian  faith  should  naturally  be  to  render  the 
fri'udu  of  C1iri»t  ohjects  of  pergonal  and  profound 
affection.  Profound  afiinity  between  the  followers 
of  Christ  is  an  inevitable  sequence  from  profound 
faitli  in  him  as  the  centre  of  all  faith.  It  is  the 
instinct  of  a  redeemed  sinner  to  grasp  the  hand 
of  every  other  redeemed  sinner.  To  identify  liim- 
self  with  Clirist's  Church  ;  to  be  kno^vn  as  one 
on  whom  rest  the  vows  of  Christ ;  to  be  called  by 
the  name  of  Christ ;  to  make  the  interests  of 
Christ's  friends  his  own  interests ;  to  be  loyal  to 
the  Christian  brotherhood,  as  to  kindred  blood,  — • 
these  are  spontaneous  impulses  to  a  child  of  God. 
Christians  are  his  fi'iends  simply  because  they  are 
Christ's  friends. 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  329 

This  experience  is  not  cautiously  reasoned  out : 
it  is  involuntary.  A  child  of  God  no  more  asks 
whether  it  is  reasonable  than  he  asks  whether 
it  is  reasonable  to  breathe.  Spontaneously  he 
says,  "  Wherever  I  see  a  fellow-sinner  clinging 
to  the  cross  of  Christ,  there  I  behold  my  father, 
my  mother,  my  brother,  my  sister.  Tliey  may 
be  my  inferiors  in  wealtli,  in  culture,  in  social 
rank :  still  they  are  my  kindred.  They  may  be 
of  a  weaker  race,  and  of  a  despised  comj^lexion. 
The  weight  of  the  world's  scorn,  which  centuries 
have  accumulated,  may  be  upon  them.  Still  they 
are  my  kinsmen.  They  have  been  bought  with  a 
price,  as  I  have  been.  My  salvation  is  of  no  more 
value  than  theirs.  It  has  cost  no  more :  it  is 
worth  no  more.  I  fill  no  larger  space  in  the 
universe,  as  Christ  regards  it,  any  more  than  I 
shall  fill  a  more  gorgeous  grave,  or  moulder  back 
to  dust  in  more  magnificent  or  beautiful  decay. 
Oh,  no,  no !  The  thing  which  distinguishes  us 
all  is,  that  Christ  has  chosen  us.  This  it  is  which 
attracts  to  us  the  wondering  gaze  of  spectators  in 
distant  worlds.  This  it  is  which  surrounds  us 
with  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses.  This  is  the 
crown  of  our  glory,  —  that  the  Lamb  of  God  has 
died  for  us,  and  the  blood  of  sprinkling  has  been 
shed  for  us. 

4.  It  follows,  also,  from  the  concentration  of 
faith  in  the  person  of  our  Lord,  that  the  chief  object 
of  a  regenerated  life  should  be  the  object  for  which 


330  STUDIES   OF   TILE   OLD   TESTA3IEN"T. 

Christ  lived  and  died.  The  genius  of  Christiiin 
living  in  this  worhl  is  not  mere  pliilanthropy.  It 
h)oks  beyond  and  above  the  objects  of  phihm- 
thropic  reform.  It  seeks  that  for  wliieh  Christ 
died.  Xo  Cliristian  life  is  true  to  itself  which 
is  not  in  this  respect  one  with  Christ's  life.  I'hi- 
lanthrop\%inay  l)e  very  well  so  far  as  it  goes,  but 
it  is  not  necessarily  Christian  living. 

The  reason  wliy  religion  and  reforyi  so  often 
drift  asunder  is  not  that  religion  does  not  syin- 
l)atliize  with  reform,  but  that  reform  does  not 
sympathize  with  religion.  Reform  plants  itself  on 
the  temporal  and  earthly  i>lane  of  benevolent 
working,  and  then  claims  that  religion  shall  come 
down  and  work  with  it.  Religion  can  only  an- 
swer, "I  cannot  come  down.  .Mine  is  the  pro- 
founder  reach  into  the  heart  of  human  woes ; 
mine  is  the  more  radical  method  of  their  remedy. 
Come  thou  up,  rather,  and  work  with  me."  The 
object  for  which  Christ  lived,  the  methods  of  liis 
procedure,  the  spirit  of  his  dying  words,  —  these 
are  the  model  of  a  Christian  manhood  to  every 
follower  of  Christ  whose  eye  has  not  been  hood- 
wijiked  in  its  perceptions  of  Christian  duty  and 
of  Christian  privilege. 

5.  The  ascendency  of  Christ  in  Christian  faith 
gives  character  to  a  Cliristian  s  anticipations  of 
heaven.  A  system  of  religion  may  always  be 
tested  by  its  theory  of  the  rewards  of  virtue  in 
another  life.     The  old  mythologies  told  what  they 


CHRIST   THE  CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL  THOUGHT.  331 

were  in  the  picture  of  Elysian  fields.  Islam 
proclaims  its  nature  in  its  promise  of  a  sensual 
paradise.  The  Scandinavian  faith  has  its  Val- 
halla. The  North-American  Indian  has  his  happy 
hunting-grounds.  Last  and  least  of  all,  poetry 
and  romance  disclose  their  effeminacy  in  the  doc- 
trine of  a  '"•sj)irit  land,"  of  which  nobody  knows 
the  character.  The  Christian  heaven  is  distin- 
guished from  them  all  by  this  one  peculiarity, — 
that  Christ  is  there.  There  as  here,  Christ  is  the 
centre  of  holy  thought.  Heaven  needs  no  sun 
or  moon :  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 

The  single  idea  of  meeting  Christ,  therefore,  is 
the  chief  thing  that  makes  heaven  attractive  to 
Christian  hope.  This  it  is  tliat  makes  heaven  our 
home.  We  are  not  qualified  to  go  there  till  this 
thought  does  make  it  homelike  to  us.  It  is  not 
the  hope  of  happiness  as  such.  It  is  not  the 
thought  of  meeting  patriarchs  and  prophets  and 
apostles.  It  is  not  the  hope  of  becoming  the 
companions  of  heroic  men  who  have  suffered  for 
the  truth.  It  is  not  the  prospect  of  sitting  at  the 
feet  of  Christian  scholars,  who  may  be  still  pur- 
suing the  researches  in  which  they  once  fascinated 
us  here.  It  is  not  the  anticipation  of  meeting  our 
favorite  characters  in  history;  the  authors  who 
have  instructed  us ;  the  poets  who  have  charmed 
us ;  the  statesmen  who  have  roused  us  to  patriotic 
deeds ;  the  preachers  who  have  moved  us  by 
words  which  we  expect  to  remember  there;  the 


332  STUDIES   OF   TIFE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

writers  of  our  favorite  liyinns,  wliich  we  hope  to 
have  sung  to  us  on  our  death-beds ;  men  and 
women  of  the  past,  for  whose  creation  we  sliall 
thank  God  forever,  —  it  is  not  chiefly  tlie  hcjpe 
of  mcetinij  this  noble  company  tliat  renders 
heaven  attractive  to  C'hristian  faith. 

Nor  is  it  tiie  dearer  hope  of  meeting  our  kin- 
dred there,  of  breaking  the  long  silence  of  their 
graves,  and  hearing  again  loved  voices,  }»iid  si'cing 
loved  faces,  ami  grasping  loving  hands  again. 
No:  not  this  is  the  central  and  regnant  thou;;ht 
of  heaven,  when  we  seem  to  draw  nearest  to  it, 
and  to  catch  the  rcUection  of  its  radiance  on  the 
hills,  or  to  hear  the  echo  of  its  strains  in  the 
midni'dit  air.  The  thought  which  then  entrances 
us  is  simply  that  Christ  is  there.  "  I  shall  see 
Christ.  These  eyes  shall  behold  him.  I.  and  not 
another.  I  shall  be  fitted  to  look  upon  liini  with- 
out shame.  I  shall  be  so  changed  that  I  can  bear 
the  look  of  liis  pure  eye.  I  shall  be  able  to  stand 
erect  in  his  presence.  I  shall  have  a  crown  to 
cast  at  his  feet.  He  will  own  me  as  his  friend. 
I  shall  reign  with  him.  What  that  may  mean, 
I  do  not  know,  but  he  knows,  and  that  suflices.  I 
shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake." 

Such  has  been  the  thought  of  confessors  of  our 
faith  in  all  ages,  as  they  drew  near  the  confines 
of  that  world.-  Martyrs,  from  St.  Stephen  down- 
ward, have  rejoiced  in  this  vision.  When  one  of 
the  most  learned  of  the  archbishops  of  England 


CHRIST   THE   CENTRE   OF   BIBLICAL   THOUGHT.  333 

was  on  his  deatli-bed,  and  friends  sought  to  com- 
fort him  by  a  review  of  his  great  and  noble  life, 
said  he,  "  Tell  me  not  now  of  what  I  have  done, 
or  of  what  I  have  been.  Tell  me  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  am  going  to  meet  him,  my  Lord  and  my  God." 
Another  of  England's  sainted  ones,  well  known 
in  her  annals  of  Christian  martyrdom,  when  the 
flames  wreathed  themselves  around  his  form, 
seemed  to  see  heaven  opened ;  and  he  could  tell 
what  he  saw  there  only  in  words  of  rapture : 
"None  but  Christ!  none  but  Chi-istI" 


I'MVl  RMT>    OF   (   \IIK>RM\    LIBRARY 
I  Ills  IxNtk  IS  1)1  I.  Oil  (hi-  ljs(  (I. Ill-  slain|K-(i  ImIuh. 


DISCHARGE-URL 

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